Mortar blast kills Iraqi, injures 14 soldiers

A BAGHDAD mortar barrage killed an Iraqi and injured 14 coalition soldiers yesterday, while a senior Egyptian diplomat returned to work a day after being released by militants.

Gunmen also killed a hospital official south of the capital.

The release of Mohammed Mamdouh Helmi Qutb, the third ranking diplomat at the Egyptian mission here, came as two different militant groups threatened to kill four new foreign hostages in an increasingly audacious wave of kidnappings in Iraq. A third group threatened attacks to cut off the highway between Jordan and Baghdad, a key supply route for the US military.

Four or five mortars were fired toward Baghdad's so-called Green Zone, the site of Iraq's interim government and the US and British embassies.

One mortar hit the Salhiya district, just outside the Green Zone, killing an Iraqi garbage collector and injuring another, according to an Associated Press Television News cameraman at the scene.

A military spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said mortar fire injured 14 soldiers, but their nationalities, the exact location of the attack and the seriousness of their wounds were not immediately clear.

South of Baghdad, gunmen assassinated the assistant director of Mahmoudiya Hospital, the hospital's chief said.

Dr Qassem el-Obaidi was shot dead by assailants in a car as he was driving home from work late on Monday.

In Basra, about 50 armed members of firebrand Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's personal militia snatched about 20 people on Monday during raids against people selling and drinking alcohol, police said. The detainees were later handed over to police.

Another group, the Islamic Army in Iraq, announced it had kidnapped two Pakistanis and passed a death sentence against them, partly because of Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's statements about possibly sending troops to Iraq. The men were identified by Pakistan as engineer Raja Azad, 49, and driver Sajad Naeem, 29.

Separately, a group calling itself the Mujahedeen Corps announced it was holding two Jordanian drivers and threatened to kill the men in 72 hours unless their Jordanian company stops cooperating with US forces and stops working here.

A group calling itself the Group of Death warned that it would start attacks against traffic on the main highway from Baghdad to the Jordan border on Friday, saying it would hit at Jordanians as well as Americans.