Egyptian Diplomat In Iraq Kidnapped, Says Embassy

BAGHDAD, July 23 (AFP) - An armed group kidnapped an Egyptian diplomat in Iraq on Friday, his embassy said in Baghdad.
"Yes, yes sir it is him," First Secretary Badereldin el-Desouki told AFP referring to Mohammed Mamdouh Hilmi Kotb, the third most senior official at the Egyptian mission in the Iraqi capital.
Kotb is the first diplomat to be taken hostage in Iraq since a wave of kidnappings gripped the country early this year.
Desouki refused to give any other details regarding the circumstances of Kotb's abduction, but another official requesting anonymity said Kotb went missing after he had gone for evening prayers in Baghdad's central Harthiya neigbourhood on the west bank of the Tigris.
"All we know is that he went to pray at a mosque in Harthiya, where he lives, and he never came back," said the official.
"We are now trying to figure out what to do."
Just minutes before, Arab television Al-Jazeera broadcast a tape showing a man identified as Kotb dressed in white shirt with blue stripes cowering before six masked armed men dressed head-to-toe in black with white bandanas around their foreheads.
Kotb was purportedly kidnapped by a group called the Lions of Allah in response to what they described as "Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif's offer to Iraq of his country's security expertise."
In Cairo, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit reacted to the kidnapping In Iraq by saying that the Egyptian government would "absolutely not" consider sending troops to the strife-torn country.
Al-Jazeera said that Kotb spoke on the tape, saying that "his abductors were treating him well and gave assurances that the Egyptian embassy was not working with US-led forces and is just helping Iraqis with reconstruction."
Kotb's abduction came 48 hours after seven truck drivers were taken hostage Wednesday by a group saying that they would execute them one by one unless their Kuwaiti employer quit Iraq.
The group purportedly offered their employer another 48 hours to meet their demands according to a tape also broadcast on Al-Jazeera Friday.