Two Egyptians Snatched in Latest Baghdad Kidnapping
Fri Sep 24, 2004 09:21 AM ET
Mortars Fired At Italian Embassy
By Mariam Karouny
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen seized two Egyptians from their Baghdad office overnight, the third in a series of operations to kidnap foreigners in the Iraqi capital this month.
A group led by the top U.S. foe in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says it will kill Briton Kenneth Bigley, 62, unless all Iraqi women are freed from U.S.-run jails.
The group beheaded American hostages Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley, and posted video footage of the killings on the Internet.
The kidnappings and other violence have raised fears that elections due in January could be postponed.
Speaking in Washington Thursday, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said elections would go ahead on time despite violence and said the situation in Iraq was being exaggerated. Critics said he was trying to paint too rosy a picture of a crisis.
Earlier this month, gunmen kidnapped two female Italian aid workers in Baghdad. Internet statements from two guerrilla groups say they have been killed, but Italy's government has dismissed the claims as unreliable.
Police said the Egyptians were snatched in their office late Thursday by gunmen who overpowered and tied up their guards. A spokesman for Egyptian telecoms company Orascom, whose Iraqi unit employed the men, said the kidnappings were not political.
Besides hostage-takings by guerrilla groups, many criminal gangs in Iraq have successfully kidnapped people for ransom.
Iraq's Interior Ministry said six people working for Iraqna, an Iraqi telecoms company in which Orascom has a large stake, had also been kidnapped in the rebel city of Falluja. There was no immediate word on whether they were Iraqis or foreigners.
More than 100 foreign hostages have been seized since April in a deepening campaign. Most have been released, but around 30 have been killed, several by being beheading.
Until this month, almost all the kidnapped foreigners were snatched on Iraq's perilous roads. But the capture of foreigners in Baghdad in operations that seem carefully planned is an escalation that has alarmed foreign embassies and firms.
"NOT QUITE PERFECT"
President Bush said Thursday that he and Allawi would "stay the course" in Iraq and insisted elections would be held in January despite the violence and kidnappings.
Yet Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conceded some areas that are guerrilla strongholds may be excluded from voting, with polls going ahead in "three-quarters or four-fifths" of Iraq.
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."
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 Senator John Kerry said: "We have an administration in disarray." A president's "true test of leadership is how to respond when things go wrong, he added.
He also questioned Allawi's optimism on whether polls could proceed, prompting criticism by Vice President Dick Cheney.
"I was appalled at the complete lack of respect Senator Kerry showed for this man of courage when he rushed out to hold a press conference and attack the prime minister, the man America must stand with to defeat the terrorists," Cheney said.
Some analysts shared the skepticism over Allawi's view.
"It looked like a publicity stunt for Bush's election campaign. The reality on the ground does not conform to his wishful thinking," Baria Alamuddin, foreign editor of the pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper, said of Allawi's speech.
"It will go down badly in Iraq, where people are being bombed and bombarded every day. Allawi may be a sincere man, but he will be seen more and more as an American stooge."
In Falluja, U.S. aircraft bombed targets in the city on Friday, residents said. The U.S. military has launched repeated air strikes on Falluja and says it is targeting the hideouts of Zarqawi's followers in the city.
In central Baghdad, a mortar attack killed four people and wounded 14, police said. Meanwhile, a group of Iraqis handed out thousands of fliers carrying a photo of British hostage Bigley, pleading in Arabic for information on his whereabouts.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
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