Envoy Attacks Escalate in Iraq

Gunmen fired on vehicles carrying the chief envoys of Bahrain and Pakistan in separate attacks Tuesday, stepping up an apparent new campaign of intimidation to prevent nations from upgrading ties with Iraq.

The Bahraini diplomat, Hassan Ansari, was wounded in the assault, which his government said was an attempt to kidnap him. Pakistan’s envoy escaped injury, but his Foreign Ministry said it would pull him out of Iraq until security improved.

The attacks occurred three days after Egypt’s top diplomat was abducted from a Baghdad street. In a brief Internet statement Tuesday evening, the Al Qaeda terrorist network’s Iraqi branch claimed that it had abducted the Egyptian envoy, Ihab Sherif.

An Iraqi official who asked not to be identified said Sherif may have been lured to the scene of the kidnapping by the possibility of meeting with insurgent representatives.

All three targeted envoys represent Islamic nations. Chief Iraqi government spokesman Laith Kubba said insurgents were targeting diplomats as part of a “psychological campaign” to keep other countries from establishing closer relations with Iraq’s transitional government, which took office in April.

The attacks were the rebels’ response, he said, to a recent plea by Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari that more nations establish embassies in Iraq. Few countries are represented in Baghdad by ambassadors, and even some that have sent troops lack the highest level of diplomatic relations with Iraq. The U.S. has joined in pressing other nations to increase their level of representation in Iraq.

In June, Egypt became the first Arab nation since the ouster of Saddam Hussein to announce that it would send an ambassador. Sherif was abducted less than a month after his arrival. He had been set to assume the title of ambassador to Iraq.

“Lately many countries were pushed to open embassies in Baghdad, so it’s not strange for the top envoy of the Egyptian Embassy to be kidnapped,” Kubba said. “It’s clear that it’s an attempt to reply and to plant terror with the other missions not to increase their presence in Iraq.”

The insurgents’ tactic appears to be working. Jordan’s deputy prime minister, Marwan Muasher, issued a statement in Amman saying his country would not send an ambassador until Iraq could provide the “right security environment.”

An average of 25 people a day have been killed in fighting and in attacks on civilians since late April, when Jafari’s government took power, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

The killing continued Tuesday, when a minibus transporting female workers to Baghdad’s international airport was ambushed by masked gunmen on the notoriously dangerous road to the airport. Four were slain and three were injured.

A 13-year-old girl was killed in Samarra, north of Baghdad, when a mortar shell fired by insurgents missed a U.S. military base and hit her neighborhood.

A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and wounded two northeast of Baghdad. No further details were released.

The military announced that Staff Sgt. Jeremy A. Brown, 26, of Mabscott, W. Va., died Sunday in Mosul of injuries he sustained that day when his vehicle rolled over in Tall Afar.

In Baghdad, an explosive device went off near the Iranian Embassy as a U.S. military convoy passed by, injuring an Iraqi civilian. Authorities initially thought the blast was another attack on diplomats but soon concluded that the convoy was the target.

Most dignitaries travel around Baghdad with armed bodyguards. Many use armored vehicles. But like the kidnapped Egyptian diplomat, Bahraini envoy Ansari was driving alone when he was attacked.

Ansari was on his way to work in the morning when as many as four gunmen in a pickup truck fired at his vehicle near his home in the wealthy Mansour district.

Bullets struck his car, and one hit him in the arm. How he managed to escape the gunmen is unclear, but he continued driving until he came upon a traffic police officer and asked for help.

“When I opened the door, I saw the blood,” 2nd Lt. Adil Taha told Al Arabiya television. “He was hit.... Immediately I stopped a rescue police patrol, which evacuated him to Yarmouk Hospital.”

The official Bahrain News Agency reported that a Foreign Ministry official said the attack was “an attempt to kidnap” the envoy. Bahrain’s information minister said Ansari would fly home in a few days but said ties with Iraq would not be affected.

Bahrain is host to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, which participated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Hours after the attack on Ansari, gunmen in two cars began shooting at a convoy carrying Pakistan’s top diplomat, Mohammed Younis Khan. The diplomat’s bodyguards returned fire, and the Pakistani vehicles escaped. Khan was not hurt.

In Pakistan, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Khan would immediately be withdrawn to Jordan until security in Iraq improved.

The Internet claim by Al Qaeda in Iraq that it was holding the Egyptian envoy was the first public indication of Sherif’s whereabouts since his disappearance Saturday evening.

“The Egyptian ambassador has been kidnapped by our mujahedin and he is now under the control of our mujahedin,” said the statement signed by the group, Reuters reported. The website said it would provide more information later.

The organization is headed by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi and is known for some of the most brutal acts of the war, including the videotaped beheadings of hostages.

Kubba, the government spokesman, said it was “odd” that Sherif drove alone to the spot where he was kidnapped. Kubba encouraged other diplomats to notify the government before seeking direct contact with opposition groups that might be linked to insurgents.

“Of course we don’t know the details of the incident, but this is one of the possibilities -- that he may have been on his way to conduct such communications,” Kubba said. “So we can only advise that communications with the armed groups is dangerous.”

Despite the anxiety spreading through the diplomatic community, U.S. Embassy spokesman Adam Hobson said the United States still wanted nations to expand their diplomatic presence in Iraq.

“It’s no secret that Iraq is a dangerous place,” he said, “but with Iraqi forces on the street getting increasingly better at providing security and with an elected government working hard to create a democratic and prosperous Iraq, we believe it’s important for the international community to show support for the Iraqis by establishing and maintaining a diplomatic presence in the country.”