New U.N. Envoy To Iraq Concerned Over Security In Iraq

WASHINGTON, July 23 (AFP) - New UN envoy to Iraq, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, expressed concern Friday over security in Iraq, after an armed group kidnapped an Egyptian diplomat in the war-torn country.
"This is our primary concern -- the security situation," Qazi told reporters when asked about the latest kidnapping in Iraq, after his meeting with US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the State Department.
Mohammed Mamdouh Hilmi Kotb, the third-most-senior official at the Egyptian diplomatic mission in the Iraqi capital, 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."
Arab television Al-Jazeera broadcast a tape showing a man identified as Kotb sitting in front of six masked armed men dressed head-to-toe in black with white bandanas around their foreheads.