Iraqi kidnap group wants top UAE diplomat out

DUBAI, May 19 (Reuters) Al Jazeera television said today the captors of a United Arab Emirates diplomat in Iraq had demanded the UAE withdraw its charge d'affaires and close a UAE-based Iraqi television channel.

''In a statement which accompanied a video, the (kidnappers) demanded that the UAE withdraw its...(charge d'affaires) and close al-Fayha channel within 24 hours,'' Al Jazeera television said, quoting a statement from the group Islam's Banner which it had first reported yesterday.

Yesterday, the channel said the captors of Naji al-Noaimi, were demanding the UAE embassy in Baghdad be closed and the TV channel be shut down within 24 hours.

A UAE official source told Reuters that the UAE was looking into the demands.

''All along we've understood that the demands were not to close the embassy but to withdraw the charge d'affaires,'' he said.

In the video aired by Al Jazeera yesterday, a man, apparently Noaimi, was shown standing next to a wall. No audio could be heard.

Noaimi was abducted following a short drive from the embassy to visit a colleague. His driver was shot during the kidnapping and later died of his wounds.

According to Al Jazeera, the group has accused the UAE of ''supplying military equipment to the sectarian Iraqi government to strike the Mujahideen'' and accused al-Fayha of broadcasting anti-Sunni propaganda.

Dubai, the trading hub of pro-Western UAE, hosts several moderate pan-Arab media organisations, including al-Fayha, a liberal Shi'ite Muslim television which often reports criticism of Iraqi insurgents.

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

The kidnapping and killing of Arab diplomats and embassy workers in the past year by Islamist militants has worsened the already frosty relations between Iraq's US-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. Insurgents have often threatened to kill Arab diplomats if their countries recognise Iraq's government.

REUTERS SHB KN1807