Pakistani man, Iraqi official kidnapped; U.S. soldier killed

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The family of a Pakistan Embassy employee kidnapped in Baghdad appealed Sunday for his captors to release him, and al Qaeda’s ally in Iraq claimed to have kidnapped and killed a senior police official.

Malik Mohammed Javed, a consular and community affairs employee at the Pakistan Embassy, was reported missing in Baghdad on Saturday after leaving home to pray at a mosque, officials said.

The previously unknown Omar bin Khattab group claimed responsibility for his kidnapping. Javed called the embassy to say his abductors had not harmed him, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said he had no information on the group. There have been no reports of a group by that name in Iraq. The kidnappers’ demands were not immediately clear.

Also Sunday, the terrorist group al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed to have kidnapped and killed Najaf police Brig. Gen. Bassem Mohammed Kadhim al-Jazaari while he was visiting Baghdad.

Meanwhile, a U.S. soldier was killed during a nonhostile incident in Iraq, the U.S. military said Sunday.

Details of the death were not released.