Iraq calls for diplomats to stay

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraq appealed to its global partners Friday to defy al Qaeda’s “blackmail” and keep their diplomats in Baghdad despite the reported slaying of Egypt’s top envoy and threats against those who support the U.S.-backed administration.

A U.S. commander acknowledged more needs to be done to protect foreign diplomats and “we’ve got to do something very quickly.” The U.N. Security Council said “there can be no justification” for attacks against diplomats.

Elsewhere, one American soldier was killed and six were wounded in separate insurgent attacks north and south of the Iraqi capital.

At the G-8 summit in Scotland, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said his government would begin withdrawing about 300 soldiers from Iraq in September – subject to security conditions at the time.

The moves come as violent incidents in the Iraqi capital are declining since Iraq’s U.S.-backed forces launched an operation against insurgents in the city six weeks ago.

The commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. William G. Webster Jr., said car bombings had dropped from 14 to 21 a week in May to about seven or eight a week now. But he said it was “very difficult to know” whether the insurgency has been broken.

Iraqi officials have become concerned about a possible diplomat flight from Baghdad after a Web site claim Thursday by al Qaeda in Iraq that it had killed Egyptian envoy Ihab al-Sherif, who was seized by up to eight gunmen on a street in western Baghdad last weekend.

Egyptian and Iraqi officials said Egypt would temporarily close its mission in Iraq and recall its staff – although al-Sherif’s body has not been found and the Web statement contained no photographic evidence of his death.

Pakistan’s Ambassador Mohammed Younis Khan left the country Wednesday after his convoy was fired on in a kidnap attempt. Bahrain’s top envoy, Hassan Malallah al-Ansari, was expected to leave soon after he was slightly wounded in a separate attempt.

In its Web statement, the country’s most feared terror group said it wanted to seize “as many ambassadors as we can” to punish governments that support Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government.

Those threats by a group responsible for numerous kidnappings, car-bombings and beheadings could undermine U.S. efforts to encourage regional acceptance for the new Iraqi government by neighboring countries, whose populations strongly oppose the American military presence here.

“If the rest of the diplomatic missions from Europe and the neighboring countries give in, this means that all the capitals of the world will be subjected to blackmail,” chief government spokesman Laith Kubba told The Associated Press. “Giving in to these groups and responding to their political demands means encouraging them to continue such actions.”

Kubba said he was certain that Iraqi and U.S. authorities could protect embassies and their staffs. Al-Sherif had no bodyguards when he was seized after stopping to buy a newspaper in a dangerous neighborhood, witnesses said. Most foreign embassies have their own security to bolster guards provided by the Iraqi security forces.

Webster, commander of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, acknowledged the new threat against diplomats and said American authorities were studying ways to improve security.

During a special meeting called at Egypt’s request, the U.N. Security Council denounced the latest attacks against Baghdad diplomats and welcomed Egypt’s “continued commitment” to Iraq.