Iranian diplomat freed in Iraq, hopes raised for others

8.00am - By LUKE BAKER

BAGHDAD - An Iranian diplomat taken hostage in Iraq last month was released by his captors on Monday but the fate of at least 11 other foreigners, including a Briton threatened with beheading, remained unclear.

The release of the diplomat, Fereidoun Jahani, comes as Jordan's King Abdullah warned in an interview to be published on Tuesday that Iraq was far too unsafe to hold elections as scheduled in January and extremists would do well in the poll if Baghdad tried to hold it.

The comments go further than ones by Secretary of State Colin Powell saying Iraq's insurgency was worsening.

Excluding troubled areas from the nationwide poll would only isolate Iraq's Sunnis and create deeper divisions in the country, Abdullah told the Paris daily Le Figaro according to a text distributed in advance.

"It seems impossible to me to organise indisputable elections in the chaos we see today," said the king, who was due to meet French President Jacques Chirac in Paris on Tuesday.

"Only if the situation improved could an election be organised on schedule," he said.

"If the elections take place in the current disorder, the best-organised faction will be that of the extremists and the result will reflect that advantage.

Asked if partial elections would isolate the Sunnis, he said: "That's exactly our worry." Jahani was seized as he travelled by car south of Baghdad by a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq. It was not clear if he was being held by the same group when he was freed.

The Iranian embassy in Baghdad said he was in good health.

The Islamic Army in Iraq is believed to be holding two French journalists kidnapped on Aug. 20 and has claimed the killing of Italian hostage Enzo Baldoni on Aug. 26.

If it is the Islamic Army that freed Jahani it will raise hopes for French journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, who looked set to be released earlier this month, although there has since been no communication.

As well as the two Frenchmen, at least nine other foreigners remain hostage in Iraq:

* two Italian women aid workers seized on Sept. 7,

* British engineer Kenneth Bigley, taken from his home in Baghdad 11 days ago, and

* six Egyptian telecoms workers.

There has been no word on the Italians, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, for several days. A group of Italian Muslims arrived in Iraq at the weekend to push for their release.

The family of Bigley, 62, has mounted a large scale campaign to have him freed, calling upon British Prime Minister Tony Blair to do more to secure his release. A British Muslim delegation left Iraq on Monday after meeting with Iraqi clerics.

Bigley was seized along with two Americans by the Tawhid and Jihad organisation, a group headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The group has demanded that all Iraqi women prisoners be released from US jails in Iraq.

No women have been freed and the two Americans have been beheaded, their bloody executions posted on the internet. Bigley is threatened with death too, although no deadline is set.

Powell's warning also linked the growing militancy to the elections scheduled for January.

"We are fighting an intense insurgency," he said on ABC television. "Yes it's getting worse, and the reason it's getting worse is that they are determined to disrupt the election.

Insurgents detonated a car bomb near a National Guard patrol in Mosul, 390km north of Baghdad, killing three Guardsmen and wounding eight people, including three civilians.

Also on Monday, US planes fired at rebel positions in the eastern Baghdad Shi'ite slum of Sadr City, residents and doctors said. Sadr City, a rebel stronghold, has been the scene of almost daily clashes between US forces and insurgents.

Centcom reported on Monday that two 1st Infantry Division Soldiers were killed in separate incidents near Balad.

The military also announced that two US soldiers based in Baghdad had been charged with murder in the death of an Iraqi civilian, raising to four the number of US soldiers from the same unit charged with the murder of Iraqis in the past week.

In an interview with London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, Iraq's Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said elections should take place in January even if "a few thousand people" cannot vote.

"Even if we assume the situation will remain the same for the next four months, it is illogical to deprive the entire Iraqi population because an area or two doesn't want elections," he said in the interview published on Monday.

(Additional reporting by Maher Al-Thanoon and Tom Perry)

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq