Iraqi diplomat, Lebanese hostage killed in Iraq

11.15am

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed a top Iraqi diplomat on Saturday in the first high-profile assassination in Iraq since an interim government took over on June 1.

Attackers fatally wounded Bassam Qubba, the Foreign Ministry's undersecretary for multinational affairs and international organisations, as he was on his way to work from his home in Baghdad's mainly Sunni Muslim Adhamiya district.

US officials say insurgents, who often target Iraqis seen as cooperating with the Americans, are likely to step up attacks before Iraq's occupation formally ends on June 30.

In other lawlessness, kidnappers killed a Lebanese citizen, Hussein Ali Alyan, 28, and two of his Iraqi colleagues, after seizing them in Baghdad on Thursday, a Lebanese diplomat said.

Foreign Ministry sources in Beirut said the bodies of the men, who worked for a Lebanese telecommunications company, had been dumped between Falluja and Ramadi, west of the capital.

But the ordeal of seven Turks kidnapped in Falluja five days ago ended in their release on Saturday, a Turkish diplomat said. The seven employees of a Turkish contracting firm were in good health. There was no word on who had seized them or why.

Anti-US groups have kidnapped dozens of foreigners in Iraq since April. Many have been freed. Apart from Alyan, an Italian and an American hostage are known to have been killed.

TARGETED KILLING

Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman Thamer al-Adhami said Qubba's assailants had overtaken his car and fired as they drove past, fatally wounding the official in the waist.

Qubba, a Shi'ite Muslim, was appointed to his post two months ago. He was a veteran career diplomat who served as ambassador to China during Saddam Hussein's Baathist rule.

A Foreign Ministry statement said the killing bore "the hallmarks of leftover supporters of Saddam Hussein's evil regime." Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said the government "will not be scared or intimidated by Saddamists."

Last month, a suicide car bomb killed the head of the Governing Council in Baghdad, and another Governing Council member survived an ambush south of the capital.

In other attacks on Saturday, a roadside bomb wounded three Iraqi policemen and a civilian in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad. The US army said two soldiers were wounded by a second roadside bomb outside the town.

The new interim government, which set security as its top priority when it was sworn in on June 1, has won cautious backing from radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

"We accept the interim government if it rejects the occupation and sets a timeframe for its withdrawal," Sheikh Jaber al-Khafaji said in a Friday sermon delivered on Sadr's behalf in Kufa, near the holy city of Najaf.

Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, has promised tough action against Sadr if his Mehdi Army militia, which launched an anti-US revolt in April, pursues violence.

Sadr had previously denounced the interim government as a puppet of the United States.

Removing another cloud over Allawi's government, Kurds have dropped their threat to leave it in protest at the failure of this week's new UN resolution to mention Kurdish autonomy.

Kurdish, Turkmen and Christian leaders meeting in the northern city of Arbil on Friday decided the omission did not justify quitting the government, saying the resolution's mention of federalism partly met Kurdish aspirations.

The resolution's U.S.-British sponsors did not refer to a transitional law guaranteeing Kurdish autonomy to avoid antagonising Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who dislikes the law and some of its contents.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq