Driver of kidnapped Arab diplomat dies in Baghdad

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

BAGHDAD, May 17 : A Sudanese driver for an Arab diplomat in Baghdad has died after being shot as he tried to stop gunmen kidnapping the envoy, police said today.

Diplomat Naji al-Noaimi of the United Arab Emirates was still missing after being snatched following a short drive from the embassy to visit a colleague last evening.

Because the house was so close by, Noaimi took no bodyguard, police said. When he stepped out of the car on arrival, the kidnappers pounced and driver Badawi Mohammed was shot as he tried to intervene.

More than 200 foreigners, including Arab diplomats and embassy workers, and thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Noaimi's mother, her voice choking with tears, appealed for her son on Dubai-based Al Arabiya television.

''My son is a good man, he loves the Iraqi people, he works to serve them. Please return my son, he's got children and a family,'' Sheikha Ali said.

His brother Mohammed told Arabiya: ''Everyone knows that the UAE embassy is doing a lot of good work in the humanitarian field.'' Among other humanitarian aid efforts in Iraq, the UAE funds a well-known hospital in Baghdad.

Arab diplomats and embassy workers have been kidnapped and killed over the past year by Islamist militants, worsening the already frosty relations between Iraq's U.S.-backed Shi'ite led government and Sunni dominated Arab states.

In 2005, al Qaeda militants in Iraq killed the Egyptian mission chief in Baghdad, two Algerian envoys, and two Moroccan embassy staff. The group has sworn to kill other Arab diplomats if their countries recognise Iraq's government.

REUTERS

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