BAQUBA, 12 July 2005 — Iraqi insurgents killed 11 soldiers yesterday as Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari promised more protection for diplomats after the abduction and murder of Egypt’s head of mission.
Nine of the troops were killed in a dawn raid on a checkpoint outside Khales north of Baghdad in which six soldiers and three civilians were also wounded, police said.
The insurgents opened fire on the troops and then detonated a truck bomb when reinforcements arrived. The explosives were hidden amid a cargo of melons.
The town has seen repeated unrest by insurgents. On June 15, a suicide bomber dressed in army uniform blew himself up at an army camp in Khales, killing 23 people and wounding 29. South of the capital, two soldiers were shot dead as they searched homes near the town of Al-Aziziyah for a fugitive suspect, the army said.
The violence followed a spate of no fewer than seven suicide bombings Sunday that killed at least 48 people.
The US military said two Marines were also among more than a dozen people killed in other violence Sunday.
The pair were conducting security operations in the Euphrates Valley town of Hit when they came under attack, a statement said.
Despite the continued bloodshed, the Iraqi foreign minister promised to do more to protect diplomatic missions in Baghdad after Egyptian diplomat Ihab Al-Sherif’s kidnapping was followed by attacks on Bahraini, Pakistani and Russian envoys.
Zebari said he met representatives of the 45 foreign missions in Baghdad yesterday morning to offer them greater protection. But the minister denied that his government was trying to keep tabs on diplomats “as was the case under the former regime,” despite complaints by government officials that some diplomats had been reaching out to the insurgents.
Zebari said an Iraqi delegation would go to Cairo in an attempt to end bitter recriminations over Sherif’s murder, which officials had earlier suggested might have followed contacts with the rebels. “I do not think the martyr was having irresponsible and unacceptable contacts in Baghdad,” Zebari said yesterday speaking of the Egyptian envoy.
But “certain foreign ambassadors have had contacts with parties” linked to the insurgency, he added.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Aboul Ghait announced a sharp drawdown of embassy staff following the murder, but Zebari appealed to other Muslim states not to follow suit in response to an attack he blamed on “remnants of Saddam’s regime”. He urged them not to bow to “the demands of terrorists and criminals who want to cut off relations between Iraq and other Arab and Islamic countries”.
