Iraqi insurgents issued a brash new challenge to the country’s interim government, capturing an Egyptian diplomat as he walked out of a mosque and making new demands for the release of seven hostages that will almost certainly go unmet.
On Saturday, kidnappers struck again, taking the head of an Iraqi government-owned construction company in Baghdad, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. Police Col. Adnan Abdel-Rahman said unidentified armed men riding in two cars snatched Ra’ad Adnan, the general director of Al-Mansour Contracting Co., as he drove through the southeastern Baghdad area of Zaieuna.