ALGIERS, 23 July 2005 — Algeria has not yet received any claim of responsibility from the kidnappers of two diplomats snatched near their mission in Baghdad, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.
“As long as there are no claims of responsibility from those behind the kidnappings we have to wait. We don’t know who is behind it,” ministry spokesman Abdelhamid Chebchoub said. “But we’re doing all possible to free our diplomats.”
In the Iraqi capital on Thursday, eight gunmen grabbed mission chief Ali Belaroussi and diplomatic attaché Azzedine Belkadi, who took up his post a few days earlier, he said.
“They had just left the embassy on their way to lunch when they were intercepted in their car some 60 meters from the embassy building,” Chebchoub said.
“An embassy attaché crossed his colleague’s Toyota car in the street and then saw two cars pull up, gunmen get out of their vehicles and quickly snatched the two diplomats and put each of them in a car,” he said.
Documents and mobile phones were left in the car of the diplomats, who were not accompanied by bodyguards.
The Foreign Ministry has set up a crisis unit to deal with the kidnapping.
Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyhia urged his country’s politicians and officials to keep quiet and avoid making more statements about the kidnapping to help the authorities in their efforts to obtain the release of the two diplomats.
Ouyhia gave no details of what action the government was taking but urged the kidnappers to set the two diplomats free.
Guerrilla strikes have driven diplomats from the Iraqi capital, undermining the US-backed government’s efforts to gain support among Arab countries.
