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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Egypt said on Friday it will
cut staff at its mission in Baghdad after its top
diplomat was killed, as Iraq urged fellow Arab and
Muslim states to send ambassadors in defiance of
attacks by al Qaeda insurgents.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the
reduction was to protect staff at the mission after
Al Qaeda in Iraq said it had killed top envoy Ihab
el-Sherif.
But Iraq's Foreign Ministry appealed to Arab and
Islamic countries not to be swayed by the kidnapping
and killing of Sherif, which it said was meant to
deter them from upgrading their diplomatic missions
in Iraq.
"Arab and Islamic countries are asked to prove their
seriousness in combating terrorism and send their
ambassadors to Baghdad so they send the right
message to the terrorists."
Iraq's president promised top security for diplomats
and Interior Minister Bayan Jabor, who has chided
envoys for travelling without protection, said Iraqi
armed escorts were always available.
A U.S. general said the U.S. military was discussing
plans with the Iraqi government under which American
and other troops could help protect diplomats in
Baghdad.
"I'm not sure that, in the end, it will result in
U.S. forces directly guarding some of those
diplomats," Major General William Webster told
reporters in Washington by teleconference.
"We have not finalised our plan yet. But we
certainly recognise we've got to do something very
quickly," Webster, commander of multinational forces
in the Baghdad area, said.
Police were hunting Sherif's killers, a day after
Cairo confirmed his death at the hands of al Qaeda
kidnappers. He had been snatched off a Baghdad
street on Saturday.
"Our investigations are continuing," a senior
Interior Ministry official said. The Islamist
militants posted a video showing Sherif speaking but
not his killing.
The Iraqi government has described the abduction and
killing of Sherif, as well as at least two other
attacks on senior diplomats in the capital this
week, as part of attempts by insurgents to isolate
the new, U.S.-backed government.
Pakistan's ambassador left the country after his
motorcade was shot at on Tuesday. The same day, the
envoy from the Gulf Arab state of Bahrain was shot
in the hand as he drove to work.
Iraq had said last week that Egypt was planning to
become the first Arab state to have a full-ranking
ambassador in Baghdad since the fall of Saddam
Hussein in 2003 -- something Cairo never confirmed.
Opposition figures in Egypt said plans to upgrade
Sherif's job had led to his death.
Egypt's Aboul Gheit did not say how many staff would
be cut at the mission, nor when the reduction would
be implemented.
SYRIA, JORDAN MAY REOPEN EMBASSIES
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani dismissed suggestions
that the attacks on the diplomats in Baghdad would
further discourage the dispatch of emissaries from
Arab capitals:
"It will have no effect," he said late on Thursday
during a visit to the Shi'ite religious
establishment in Najaf.
"Two countries, Syria and Jordan, have asked to
reopen their embassies in Iraq. For our part, we
will take strict security precautions to protect
embassies and diplomatic residences."
Though publicly critical of Iraq's Sunni Arab
insurgency, most Arab leaders are Sunnis and view
with some mistrust the U.S.-sponsored new government
in Baghdad, run by Shi'ites from Iraq's long
oppressed majority community and by non-Arab Kurds.
A U.S. military official linked the campaign against
embassy staff to a crackdown by security forces on
car bombings that may have caused insurgents to
adopt new tactics for a time.
"If we come down hard on one kind of attack they
shift to something else," he said. "A number of
diplomats have been attacked. Our impression is that
will continue and we've got to turn our attention to
improving security."
Already a number of attacks on highly sensitive
targets like Baghdad's fortified Green Zone
government and diplomatic compound and the city's
airport had been thwarted, he added:
"The enemy is looking for ways to keep this war
going and tear down the belief that the government
can succeed."
ACCUSATIONS
Iraq's al Qaeda group, led by Jordanian Abu Musab
al- Zarqawi, announced Sherif's death in a Web
statement: "We al Qaeda in Iraq announce that the
judgement of God has been implemented against the
ambassador of the infidels ... Oh enemy of God, Ihab
el-Sherif, this is your punishment in this life."
The Egyptian presidency said Sherif "lost his life
at the hands of terrorism which trades in Islam".
An Egyptian diplomatic source said Egypt had
confirmation of the killing "through multiple
contacts" but had not received decisive evidence and
did not know where Sherif's body might be.
Egypt is one of the friendliest states in the region
towards the United States and was the first to make
peace with Israel, where Sherif had previously been
Cairo's top envoy.
Sectarian tensions are evident across in Iraq and
especially in the capital, where daily killings are
attributed to ethnic and religious strife. Late on
Thursday, the imam of a Shi'ite mosque was shot dead
in his car in the south of the city.
Italy said on Friday it would start to pull its
troops out of Iraq as planned in September but would
not hasten the withdrawal because of fresh terror
threats.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told
reporters at a summit of world leaders in Scotland
that Italy was a prime target for extremists thanks
partly to its troop deployment in Iraq. But he
shrugged off calls from back home to speed up the
troop pullout following the bomb attacks in London
on Thursday.
Reuters
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