BAGHDAD, 4 June 2006 — A Russian diplomat was killed and four diplomatic employees were kidnapped in the Iraqi capital yesterday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
In a statement issued in Moscow, the ministry said that at about 1.45 p.m. (0945 GMT) assailants attacked a Russian diplomatic car that was carrying “workers of the Russian foreign service who were performing their official duties,” killing one person and abducting four.
The statement said authorities were investigating the incident and were working with Iraqi and international authorities to secure the release of the abductees.
The statement did not give the names or the positions of the person killed or the people abducted.
The body of the diplomat was taken to Baghdad morgue. Russian security personnel kept media away and confiscated equipment from Associated Press Television News.
According to police, witnesses at the scene told them that gunmen opened fire on a car that belonged to the Russian Embassy in west Baghdad’s upscale Mansour district. Interior Ministry Lt. Col. Falah Al-Mohamedawi said one person was killed in the incident, which took place just outside the embassy.
Associated Press Television News footage showed a white SUV with tinted windows, diplomatic license plates and a small tag that had Russian Embassy written on it in English and Arabic. That sign had a bullet hole in it. An ambulance was seen driving into the embassy.
There was no immediate comment from the Iraqi Foreign Ministry.
The Interfax news agency quoted an employee at the Russian Embassy in Baghdad as saying that “we confirm that one diplomat has been killed, four abducted.”
At least 439 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq since the US-led invasion three years ago, according to figures provided earlier this month by a special US anti-kidnapping task force. Diplomats have been the targets of abductions previously.
Meanwhile, a suicide car bomber killed at least 15 people and injured 30 yesterday in the main market of Basra, Iraq’s second largest city.
The explosion occurred in the late afternoon when a large number of people were in the square, Capt. Mushtaq Kadhim of the Basra police said.
Also yesterday, Iraqi police found eight severed heads north of Baghdad with a note indicating they were killed in retaliation for the slaying of four Shiite doctors, authorities said.
The grisly discovery came as at least 11 other people were killed amid a spike in violence in the volatile city of Baquba, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, the US military has said it had found no wrongdoing by American troops accused of intentionally killing civilians during a raid in a village north of Baghdad that left up to 13 Iraqis dead, drawing anger from relatives of those killed.
The decision was announced yesterday as dramatic footage aired of a row of dead children in the aftermath of the March 15 raid.
The investigation of the attack in Ishaqi concluded that the US troops followed normal procedures in raising the level of force after they came under fire while approaching a building where they believed an Al-Qaeda terrorist was hiding, said Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a US military spokesman.
