Gunmen kidnap top Egyptian diplomat

AN Egyptian envoy expected to become Iraq’s first Arab ambassador since its new government took office was kidnapped in Baghdad, weeks after arriving in the country, diplomats said yesterday.

Witnesses said gunmen accosted Ihab al-Sherif as he stopped to buy a newspaper late Saturday, pistol-whipped him and accused him of being an “American spy”. The kidnapping could undermine US-backed efforts to encourage Iraq’s Arab neighbours to send high ranking diplomats to Baghdad.

The abduction occurred hours before US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales paid a heavily guarded surprise visit to Iraq. Gonzales praised Iraqi’s commitment to democracy in the face of sustained deadly attacks by insurgents.

In violence yesterday, a car bomb killed three Iraqi policemen north of Baghdad, while two US soldiers were wounded in a suicide attack near a checkpoint in the volatile western city of Ramadi.

Also in Ramadi, a US military helicopter caught fire Saturday night, destroying the $13.5 million CH-47 Chinook and injuring one crewman. No further details were released pending an investigation. Two Egyptian diplomats, speaking in Cairo and Baghdad on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said al-Sherif was kidnapped late Saturday in the Iraqi capital. Al-Sherif, aged 51, has been in Iraq since June 1.

Last month, the Egyptian government said it would upgrade its mission in Iraq to full embassy status headed by an ambassador, which would have made al-Sherif the first Arab ambassador to Iraq’s new government although the timing of the move was uncertain.

In a message relayed by a deputy, Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said al-Sherif was “Egypt’s representative to the whole Iraqi people and that his legal status is the chief of the diplomatic mission and not ambassador”.

Egyptian deputy foreign minister Hani Khallaf also said he hoped the kidnappers would appreciate that al-Sherif had gone “to serve the interests of the Iraqi people and we expect them to deal with him in a way compatible with his national, pan-Arab and humanitarian mission”.

“If the kidnappers want to send a certain message, then al-Sherif is the most trusted one to bring it to Egypt,” he told reporters.

A leading Sunni organisation called for al-Sherif’s immediate release. The Iraqi Islamic Party condemned the abduction and demanded al-Sherif’s release.