Diplomats urged to stay, despite killing

BAGHDAD — Iraq urged the world’s nations yesterday to stand up to “blackmail” and keep their diplomatic missions in the country despite a claim by an al Qaeda wing that it killed Egypt’s top envoy.

An Iraqi Cabinet minister said some Arab diplomats were in contact with insurgents and blamed the Egyptian diplomat for his death, saying he went to an unsafe location without protection.

Al Qaeda in Iraq said in a Web posting that it had killed Ihab al-Sherif and warned it would go after “as many ambassadors as we can” to punish countries that support Iraq’s U.S.-backed leadership.

Saad Mohammed Ridha, the head of Iraq’s diplomatic mission in Cairo, said Egypt’s Foreign Ministry informed him late Thursday that the mission would close temporarily and the staff was recalled.

Iraqi government spokesman Laith Kubba said he hadn’t been informed that Egypt intended to recall its diplomats, but urged other countries not to be intimidated.

“If the rest of the diplomatic missions from Europe and the neighboring countries give in, this means that all the capitals of the world will be subjected to blackmail,” Mr. Kubba said.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari announced last month that Egypt would be the first Arab country to upgrade its diplomatic representation by appointing a full-fledged ambassador.

In Cairo, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak insisted his country will continue to support Iraq. “This terrorist act will not deter Egypt from its firm position in support of Iraq and its people,” he said.

However, Mr. al-Sherif’s case threatens to strain Iraqi-Egyptian relations. Even before Mr. al-Sherif’s slaying, Iraq’s government had suggested that the diplomat was partly to blame for his abduction. It also indirectly accused him of secret contacts with groups in the Sunni-dominated insurgency.

Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Mr. al-Sherif went out the night of his abduction to an insecure area without bodyguards.

“So, he takes responsibility for what happened,” said the minister, a hard-line Shi’ite Muslim from the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country’s largest Shi’ite party. The minister spoke on Al Jazeera television Wednesday, a day before al Qaeda in Iraq announced the Egyptian’s death.

For its part, Egypt placed some of the blame on Baghdad, with Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit saying Thursday that “some responsibility rests with the host state.”

Egypt’s U.N. ambassador, Maged Abdelaziz, asked the Security Council on Thursday to urgently address the issue of protecting diplomats in Iraq.

Shi’ite and Sunni clerics in Iraq, speaking at Friday prayers, condemned Mr. al-Sherif’s killing.

“We reject any attack against any diplomat because attacking the diplomats is an act that doesn’t serve our cause,” said Sheik Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarie of the Association of Muslim Scholars at Baghdad’s Um al-Qura Mosque.

In violence yesterday, a roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and wounded three in Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, the military said. The soldiers belonged to the 29th Brigade Combat Team.