The Egyptian diplomat freed from kidnappers in Iraq returned to work in Baghdad today and said he was treated well by the terror group.

Kidnappers released a senior Egyptian diplomat they had seized outside a mosque as two other militant groups threatened to kill four new foreign hostages amid an increasingly audacious wave of kidnappings in Iraq.

Iraq’s interim leader said that diplomatic relations with neighbouring Syria, broken off since the 1980s, would be restored, and the two countries would form a committee to study security issues amid concern over terrorists sneaking into Iraq.

Fearless, deeply pious and embittered by years of incarceration and torture, Sayed Qutb was hanged in 1966 for plotting to overthrow the state.