Pakistani diplomat goes missing in Baghdad

[cal04]

A Pakistani diplomat has gone missing in Baghdad, Iraqi police say.
They said the man had failed to return from prayers at a mosque near his home on Saturday. Scores of foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq over the past year, some by insurgent groups with political demands and others by criminals seeking a ransom.

An Egyptian diplomat was seized by insurgents on his way home from prayers last year but was freed a few days later.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=705313§ion=news&src=rss/uk/worldNews

Malik Mohammed Javed disappeared some time on Saturday but there is no information on whether he might have been kidnapped. Pakistan officials confirmed that the man had gone missing from the capital, Baghdad, but said they had no details. Many foreigners have been kidnapped since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Some have been killed and others freed after ransoms were paid.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4429581.stm

[UpInArms]

1. Pakistani embassy man missing in (lawless) Baghdad

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-04-10T083016Z_01_DEN728230_RTRUKOC_0_IRAQ.xml

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A Pakistani working at the country's embassy in Baghdad has gone missing, the latest foreigner to vanish in Iraq's lawless capital.

An embassy official and local police on Sunday identified the man, Malik Mohammad Javed, as the Pakistani consul. But Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman, Jalil Abbas Jilani, told Reuters in Islamabad Javed was an embassy staff member, not a diplomat.

Javed had failed to return from prayers at a mosque near his home on Saturday, the embassy said. His daughter alerted the embassy and police searched for him overnight.

Scores of foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq over the past year, some by insurgent groups seeking to pressure foreign troops to leave and others by criminals seeking a ransom.

Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in its war on terror, did not back the invasion of Iraq.

...more...

I thought things were better - but this implies not - lawless Baghdad indeed.

[saigon68]

2. lawless Baghdad Capital of Iraq-Nam

It is the newest represented commonwealth, of the wealthiest nation in the Western Hemisphere, the Consolidated Corporate States of North Amerika N.A. It may become the 53rd State of this powerful Union


IRAQ-NAM, is a ruthless, vicious place that asks No Quarter and Gives None.

It is ruled by various puppets appointed by Cheney Caesar, in the year of Our Lord Two Thousand Five A. D.

Death here rides a Pale Horse.

Death claims in no particular order, the Innocent, the Guilty, the Unlucky and the Careless.

[leftchick]

3. Pakistan embassy official kidnapped in Baghdad

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1504&ncid=1504&e=3&u=/afp/20050410/ts_afp/iraq_050410182113

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Kidnappers seized a Pakistani embassy official in Baghdad, the latest victim of the spate of hostage-taking in Iraq's insurgency, as ex-prime minister Iyad Allawi's political bloc said it would join a national unity government.

~snip~

Islamabad said embassy employee Malik Mohamed Javed had been kidnapped by a group calling itself the Omar Khattab group, after evening prayers on Saturday in Baghdad's western Amariya district.


"We appeal to the kidnappers of Malik Mohamed Javed to release him immediately," said Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid.


Rashid said one of the kidnappers had contacted Pakistan's charge d'affaires in Iraq by telephone Sunday and told him that Javed, who has no diplomatic status, was in their custody.