BAGHDAD, 25 September 2004 — Gunmen abducted six Egyptians and four Iraqis working for the country’s mobile phone company, seizing two in a bold raid on the firm’s Baghdad office and the others outside the capital, officials said yesterday, the latest in a string of kidnappings that have underscored the country’s fragile security.

The attacks follow the kidnapping of two Americans and a Briton last week from their Baghdad home and the abduction of two Italian aid workers from their office earlier this month.

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi yesterday asked world leaders at the United Nations to help “defeat the forces of terrorism” and build the future of Iraq.

“I appeal to all representatives from the countries gathered here to help Iraq defeat the forces of terrorism and help Iraq build a better future for the people of Iraq,” he said in a speech at the UN General Assembly.

In Baghdad, Iraqis handed out thousands of leaflets with a photo of British hostage Kenneth Bigley, pleading in Arabic for word on his whereabouts.

Speaking in Washington on Thursday, Allawi said the poll would go ahead on time despite the violence and said the situation in Iraq had been exaggerated. President George W. Bush said he and Allawi would “stay the course” in Iraq and insisted elections would be held in January despite the violence.

Allawi said the elections would be free and fair. “They may not be the best elections that Iraq will ever hold,” he said. “But they will take place and they will be free and fair.”

But US officials gave contrasting views on the scope of the polls. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conceded some guerrilla strongholds might be excluded from voting, with polls going ahead in “three-quarters or four-fifths” of Iraq.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said the polls should encompass the whole of the country.

“We’ve got to do our best efforts to get in troubled areas. ... I think we’re going to have these elections in all parts of the country,” he told a House of Representatives committee.

US forces surrounded the town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, and called on residents to leave so they could expel militants, witnesses said. A police officer said tens of Iraqis had been wounded in the town, part of Iraq’s central Sunni heartland.

In nearby Fallujah, US aircraft bombed targets in the city yesterday, residents said. The US military has launched repeated air strikes on Fallujah, usually targeting what it says are hide-outs used by Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi’s followers in the city.

In central Baghdad, a mortar attack killed four people and wounded 14 in a busy square, police said.

In a speech to Congress in Washington, Allawi said Iraq’s fledgling security forces would prevail against the insurgents.

“In Iraq, we confront both an insurgency and the global war on terror, with their destructive forces sometimes overlapping,” he said. “I can tell you today they will not succeed.” But Democrat presidential contender Sen. John Kerry said: “We have an administration in disarray.” The “true test of leadership” is how to respond when things go wrong, he added.

— Additional input from agencies