The Egyptian ambassador designate to Iraq was kidnapped on Saturday while walking alone on a Baghdad street in the first abduction of a head of mission since the spate of foreign hostage-taking began. Ihab al-Sharif, 51, had parked his car in front of a food store and a newspaper shop and had walked around 20 meters when two cars screeched to a halt and seven armed men jumped out, an eyewitness, who declined to be named, told AFP on Sunday.
Sharif had been named the first Arab ambassador to post-Saddam Hussein Iraq on June 1 but had yet to formally present his credentials.
"I arrived this morning and I was shocked to learn that the ambassador (designate) had been kidnapped," an embassy employee told AFP.
An interior ministry source confirmed that Sharif was seized late Saturday between the embassy and his home in the Hay al-Jamaa neighbourhood.
Senior Egyptian foreign affairs ministry official Hani Khallaf told reporters in Cairo that the government "hopes that those responsible for his disappearance will treat him as a patriot and as supporter of the Arab cause."
Insurgents briefly held another Egyptian diplomat in July 2004 and also kidnapped an Iranian envoy, but both were later released unharmed.
Meanwhile, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made a surprise visit to Baghdad, his first to Iraq, to meet with both US and Iraqi officials, the embassy said.
"We recognise and thank the brave American men and women who are sacrificing to promote democracy in Iraq and to defend our freedom," Gonzales said upon arrival, according to the embassy statement.
At least seven Iraqis were killed in insurgent violence on Sunday, and four unidentified bodies were found by police in Baquba, north-east of Baghdad.
Iraq's fledgling security forces again took the brunt of the violence.
Two policemen died when a bomber targeted the vehicle of Colonel Imad Nureddin, police chief of the town of Al-Ryad, west of the northern oil centre of Kirkuk, police said. The colonel was not in his car at the time.
A member of the special oil infrastructure protection force was killed when the convoy he was in was struck by a roadside bomb near the northern town of Baiji. A civilian also died in that attack, an Iraqi army spokesman said.
Meanwhile the Iraqi government said it was worried about the rise in civilian deaths by US fire, saying that Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari will raise the issue with US officials.
The comments came after Yasser al-Salihy, an employee of US media group Knight Ridder was killed June 24 near his home in Baghdad's western Ameriyah district by purported US sniper fire.