Gunmen seized two Algerian diplomats Thursday -- including the country's top envoy to Iraq -- in the latest attacks aimed at scaring away Muslim diplomats and undermining the US-backed Iraqi government.
The abductions brought to five the number of key diplomats from Muslim countries targeted in Baghdad in less than three weeks. The top Egyptian envoy was reportedly killed after being captured, and two apparent kidnapping attempts against diplomats were foiled.
The chief of Algeria's mission in Iraq, charge d'affaires Ali Belaroussi, 62, and another Algerian diplomat, Azzedine Belkadi, 47, were dragged from their car along with their driver in west Baghdad's upscale Mansour district, police and Algerian officials said.
By yesterday, no claim of responsibility had surfaced, Algerian authorities said. They expressed surprise over why the Algerians were captured, saying Algiers has steadfastly refused to take part in the US-led coalition.
A fellow diplomat, Abdelwahab Felahi, told Algerian radio that he was in another car when he saw their brake lights flash and knew there was a problem.
"I wasn't armed, and I couldn't intervene, and in the time it took to warn police in front of the embassy, the kidnappers, diplomats and their vehicle had disappeared," said Felahi, adding he was to meet Belaroussi for lunch a half-hour after the time of the kidnapping.
Belaroussi, a career diplomat and father of four, has been in Iraq for about two years, and served as financial director at Algeria's embassy in Paris from 1997 to 2002, Algerian officials said.
Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Al-Khafaji told Al-Jazeera television that the Algerian envoy had refused Iraqi offers to provide him with bodyguards, saying he didn't need protection because "Algeria's relationship with the Iraqis is good."
Yesterday, a spate of violent attacks across Baghdad left at least 12 people dead, including six Iraqi policemen and a newlywed bride.
Assailants shot dead three policemen in the eastern Mashtal district in Baghdad as they were directing traffic, said police lieutenant Osama Adnan.
In two other attacks on police patrols in eastern Baghdad, three police officers were killed and three others injured.
Gunmen also fired on a car carrying a newlywed couple and their families, killing the bride and her mother and wounding the groom, in the southern Dora neighborhood, according to police and medical officials.
Dawn clashes between insurgents and a joint Iraqi police-army patrol left two suspected insurgents dead, police said. A soldier and a police officer were wounded in the fighting.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has told the US Congress that progress toward establishing democracy in Iraq is on track despite a deadly insurgency, but it offered no estimate of when US troops would start withdrawing.
In its most comprehensive public assessment yet of conditions in Iraq, the military released a 23-page report that described progress and problems on the political, economic and security fronts.
The report says the key will be reaching the point when Iraqi security forces are trained and equipped at a level at which they can assume primary responsibility. It does not estimate when that will happen.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion