BAGHDAD - The group of Iraq's Al-Qaeda chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi became Wednesday the second outfit to claim the kidnapping a day earlier of an Iraqi general in the capital.
"The Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Land of Two Rivers abducted on April 5 General Jalal Mohammed Salah, a senior security official in the interior ministry, as well as two of his body guards," said a statement on an Islamist website whose authenticity could not be verified.
The statement was accompanied by photographs allegedly belonging to the general and bearing his name.
Salah, commander of an interior ministry armoured brigade, was seized with an undetermined number of bodyguards in the upmarket residential district of Mansur, a ministry official said on Tuesday.
It was the latest in a spate of kidnappings and ambushes to hit Iraq's security forces which are being groomed by Washington to clear the way for the exit of coalition troops.
Earlier Wednesday, another group, Ansar al-Sunna, said it had kidnapped an interior ministry general, without giving his name.
04/06/2005 16:15 GMT