Bahrain's top envoy to Iraq was injured Tuesday in the second attack against an Arab diplomat in Baghdad in less than a week. The Bahraini diplomat, Hassan Malallah al-Ansari, was shot on his way to work in western Baghdad, said Dr. Muhanad Jawad of Yarmouk Hospital. Al-Ansari was treated for a shoulder wound and was released, witnesses said. Later in the day, Pakistan's ambassador also escaped an assault on his convoy.
These attacks came three days after gunmen seized Egypt's top envoy to Iraq. On Tuesday, Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of the Egyptian diplomat, Ihab al-Sherif, in an Internet statement. "We, the al-Qaeda in Iraq, announce that the Egyptian ambassador has been kidnapped by our mujahedeen and he is under their control," said the statement posted on a Web forum used by Islamist groups.
On Monday, a Sunni cleric, Harith al-Dhari, condemned all kidnappings, calling them "a bad phenomenon that emerged after the occupation of Iraq by America and its allies."
Elsewhere, gunmen ambushed a minibus taking seven Baghdad airport employees to work Tuesday, killing four women and wounding three men, police and hospital official said, according to The AP.
A mortar attack missed a U.S. military base and struck central Samarra, killing a 13-year-old girl and wounding four civilians, police said. In another incident, a roadside bomb targeted a U.S. security convoy Tuesday near the Iranian Embassy, caused no U.S. casualties but injured one Iraqi, officials said.
