Egyptian Diplomat Kidnapped; Cairo Swears Off Deployment To Iraq

BAGHDAD, July 24 (AFP) - Cairo vowed Friday not to send troops to Iraq after an armed group kidnapped an Egyptian diplomat, and relatives of seven other hostages begged for the release of their loved ones threatened with beheading.
Meanwhile, firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr resurfaced at a mosque after an absence of nearly two months to criticize interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
The hostages -- three Kenyans, three Indians and an Egyptian, all truck drivers -- were kidnapped on Wednesday by a group calling itself "The Holders of the Black Banners."
One of its demands is that their employer, trucking company Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport, withdraw from Iraq. The group has warned that if the company fails to comply a hostage would be killed every 72 hours beginning Saturday.
Kenya, which on Thursday ordered its citizens to leave Iraq, said it was "very optimistic" its three nationals would soon be released after the company said it was willing to meet the kidnappers' demand, government spokesman Alfred Mutua said.
"The owner of the company has indicated to us that he is willing to adhere by the demands of the kidnappers," said Mutua.
Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh said, "I don't want to give any false hopes. It is a serious situation and has to be dealt with in a sensitive manner."
He added that New Delhi had had no contact with the group holding the men.
Singh's deputy, Edaepakath Ahmed, had told reporters earlier that Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport had also assured the Indian embassy in Kuwait it was "willing to do everything necessary to ensure the safety and release" of the hostages.
Meanwhile, US forces said they carried out an air strike on a suspected hideout of alleged al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi in the troubled town of Fallujah.
Five Iraqis were wounded in the attack, launched at 6:33 am (0233 GMT) and directed against about a dozen suspects at a house in southwest Fallujah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad.
"The anti-Iraqi forces were struck while in the courtyard of a house; the house was left intact," said a US army statement.
The latest strike came only five days after a similar hit on a suspected Zarqawi hideout left 11 people dead and seven injured.
The Jordanian-born Zarqawi, who is blamed for some of the bloodiest car bombs and attacks in Iraq, has a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head.
Elsewhere, a huge crowd of supporters gathered in Kufa to hear cleric Moqtada Sadr preach for the first time in nearly two months.
Draped in the hallmark white robe he reserves for his Friday sermons, Sadr had harsh words for Prime Minister Allawi for authorizing recent US military air strikes on Fallujah.
"You have proven that you are just an extension of the occupation," said Sadr, as young men raised their fists in the air and cheered his name and screamed: "We are with you 'til death, Sayed Moqtada."
"Allawi, I tell you, what right do you have to order the reopening of the Hawza paper, if you were not the one to shut it down in the first place," Sadr told his faithful, who swarmed inside the grand mosque in Kufa, 150 kilometers (90 miles) south of Baghdad.
"Damn him and damn the occupier," said Sadr.
On Sunday, Allawi ordered the lifting of a ban on Sadr's weekly paper imposed by former US administrator Paul Bremer in late March because it had allegedly been instigating violence.
The closing of Sadr's paper and the arrest of one of his deputies in late March unleashed a rebellion that left hundreds dead.
In another Iraqi hotbed, two US soldiers were killed and one was wounded when their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb on Thursday outside Samarra north of Baghdad.
The latest casualties brought to 664 the number of US troops killed in action in Iraq since the start of the US-led war in March 2003, according to Pentagon figures.
Nine Iraqis were killed and 10 injured Thursday night when a van they were traveling in north of Baghdad hit a US tank.
A military spokesman said the van was carrying at least 19 people and that the accident happened at about 10:00 pm (1800 GMT) near Taji, 27 kilometers (16 miles) north of the capital.
A multi-million dollar UN plan will rescue Iraq's southern marshlands, considered by some to be the site of the Bible's Garden of Eden.
The project, funded by Japan and approved in the framework of the UN Iraq Trust Fund, will also install drinking water and sanitation systems in key communities.
The newly named UN envoy to Iraq expressed concern Friday over security in Iraq.
"This is our primary concern," Ashraf Jehangir Qazi said.