BAGHDAD, 24 July 2004 — Iraqi militants have seized an Egyptian diplomat in Baghdad and demanded that Egypt should not cooperate with US-led forces, Al-Jazeera TV station reported yesterday.
The Arabic station showed a videotape of Mohamed Mamdouh Qutb — the first diplomat known to have been abducted in a wave of hostage-taking that has swept Iraq — sitting in front of six masked men dressed in black.
“The group said the abduction was in response to comments by Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif that Egypt is ready to offer its security experience to the interim Iraqi government,” Al-Jazeera said.
“The hostage said in the tape that the Egyptian Embassy does not cooperate with the American forces and should help the Iraqi people in rebuilding,” the station said.
Asked about Al-Jazeera’s report, an Egyptian Embassy staff member said in Baghdad: “It’s correct.” No other details were immediately available.
In another hostage standoff, a group which has threatened to behead seven foreign captives, issued a new 48-hour deadline to the Kuwaiti company that employs them and demanded Iraqi prisoners be freed from Kuwaiti and US jails.
Al-Jazeera showed a videotape of a masked man reading a statement in front of the seven men — three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian — who were sitting on the ground.
“(The group) said the company must pay compensation to the families of the dead in Fallujah and Iraqi prisoners in American and Kuwait jails should be released,” Al-Jazeera said.
The hostages’ employer, the Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company, said earlier it would not meet the kidnappers’ original demand that the firm cease operations in Iraq.
US forces bombed Fallujah yesterday in the latest of a series of such raids targeting suspected guerrillas led by Jordanian-born Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, accused by Washington of having links to Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda.
The US military did not say if anyone was killed, but said the airstrike was carried out in coordination with Iraq’s interim government. “Many tribal leaders and residents of Fallujah are tired of terrorist activities in their city and support the recent series of attacks against Zarqawi’s forces in southern Fallujah,” the US military said in a statement.
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, on a tour of the Middle East, arrived in neighboring Syria in a bid to repair often fraught ties with Damascus and curb the alleged flow of foreign fighters across the porous borders.
“We must begin a new fraternal and sincere era of cooperation and coordination after the fall of the dictatorial regime in Iraq and the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people,” Allawi told reporters.
But his tough stance on security earned him harsh words from militant Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, who reappeared in Kufa, south of Baghdad, for the Friday sermon after a near two-month absence from public view.
“You have proven that you are just an extension of the occupation,” said Sadr, who spearheaded a deadly rebellion against foreign troops earlier this year, as young men raised their fists in the air and cheered his name.
“Damn him and damn the occupier.”
Sadr said militants were not justified in beheading a South Korean hostage. “If you knew politics and religion, you would not have cut off his head,” Sadr told Friday prayers.
“True, they are your enemies and occupiers, but this does not justify cutting off their heads,” Sadr said.
— Additional input from agencies
