Sudan Embassy driver killed in Iraq

Nov 9, 2005 (BAGHDAD) — A driver for the Sudanese Embassy was shot dead Wednesday as he left the Palestinian mission in the Iraqi capital, police and the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said.

The shooting occurred in the Mansour area of western Baghdad, where gunmen have attacked foreign diplomats and businessmen in the past. The driver was a Sudanese citizen, police and the ministry said.

Labeed Abbawi, an undersecretary in the Iraki Foreign Ministry, confirmed the report but didn’t know why the driver was at the Palestinian mission or whether he was the only person in the car.

On 8 November the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) said the Administrative Attaché at the Sudanese Embassy in Baghdad Taha Mohamed Ahmed suffered a slight wound when he was hit by a stray bullet while he was sitting in the embassy’s garden Monday and received medical treatment in hospital.

The Spokesman of Sudanese Foreign Ministry Ambassador Jamal Mohamed Ibrahim said that treatment of Ahmed in hospital had taken only minutes, after which he returned and resumed his work in the embassy as usual.

The attack followed the abduction last month of two employees of the Moroccan Embassy, who were seized on the highway between Baghdad and Amman, Jordan. Statements attributed to al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility and said the two had been sentenced to death.

Al-Qaida also claimed responsibility for the kidnap and slaying last July of three foreign diplomats – two Algerians and one Egyptian – as part of a campaign to cut ties between Muslim countries and the Shiite-dominated, U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

Abbawi said he doubted there would be any cutback in diplomatic missions here as a result of the latest attack.

(ST/AP)