US military 'may protect foreign diplomats'

The US military is considering offering protection to foreign diplomats in Baghdad after al-Qaida agents killed three Arab envoys this month.

“Coalition forces… are planning to look at this problem and see what could be done to fix the security for the diplomats,” American Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said. “It’s very important for foreign diplomats who come here to have a sense of security.”

He spoke a day after Iraq’s most feared terrorist group announced it had killed two Algerian diplomats – including the country’s chief envoy in Iraq - because of their government’s ties to the US and its crackdown on Islamic extremists.

Chief envoy Ali Belaroussi and diplomat Azzedine Belkadi were kidnapped outside their embassy in Baghdad’s western neighbourhood of Mansour. Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility.

The group, headed by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, also claimed responsibility for the kidnap and murder of Egypt’s top envoy and the attempted abduction of two other Muslim diplomats, in a campaign to undercut support for the new Iraqi government within the Arab and Muslim world.

The US has urged Arab and Muslim countries to deepen their diplomatic ties to Baghdad – a strategy that seems at risk after the brutal attacks.

Khalilzad said no final decision had been made on offering protection, and some Arab diplomats may fear the presence of US forces around diplomatic missions could actually draw insurgent attacks.

“We have not accepted taking on the mission at this point,” Khalilzad said. “But what we’ve agreed is, we will look at this, see what the problem is, and what the options might be for assisting.”

It was not clear exactly how many diplomats the US might be called on to protect. There are more than 40 foreign missions and some 500 diplomats in Iraq.

Both the Algerians and the Egyptian diplomat had no personal bodyguards. Belaroussi told colleagues he felt no need for security because of Algeria’s good relations with the Iraqi people and its opposition to the US-led invasion.

Meanwhile, Algerian police detained Ali Belhadj, a former deputy leader of the banned Islamic Salvation Front, after he publicly praised Iraq’s uprising and condoned the killing of the two diplomats, it was reported.

Belhadj, freed in 2003 after serving a 12-year prison sentence, was apprehended on Wednesday after making the comments in a telephone interview with Al-Jazeera television, El Watan newspaper said.

The kidnappings were part of a surge in militant attacks after the Shiite and Kurdish-led government was announced April 28.