BAGHDAD (AFP) - Bahrain's top diplomat in Iraq was wounded in an ambush and the Pakistani ambassador narrowly escaped assassination, as insurgents targeted Muslim envoys in an apparently new tactic.
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Three days after the abduction of Egypt's top envoy, the Iraqi government spokesman said the attacks were a "a message of terror" to dissuade governments from expanding ties with the country.
Pakistan said it was moving its ambassador, Younis Khan, to Amman.
The attack on Khan happened as two cars came up from behind and fired on his vehicle as he was around a kilometre (half a mile) from his residence in the capital's central Mansur district.
"I am safe, but it was a very narrow escape," Khan told AFP. "We sped out of danger but it was an extremely dangerous situation."
Khan said one of the attackers was hit in an ensuing gunfight with his guards.
Also in Mansur, gunmen in a pickup truck earlier shot Hassan al-Ansari, the Bahraini charge d'affaires, while he was travelling in his car with diplomatic license plates, an interior ministry source said.
Ansari was treated at Yarmuk hospital before leaving with guards.
Witnesses said he was ambushed by at least eight gunmen after leaving home.
"Two men got out of their cars and screamed at him 'get out of your car' and at me 'get back inside'," a butcher said.
Instead, the diplomat kept going, and two of the men shot at him with an assault rifle and pistol, he said.
Ansari's car slowed down, but when the men ran after him he accelerated and managed to get away.
Two hundred meters further on, Ansari stopped near a policeman and cried out: "I am a diplomat, help me!".
The policeman said "he was bleeding a lot. His suit, case and car were covered with blood. A short time later, a police patrol passed by and took him to the hospital."
Neither the rich Gulf kingdom of Bahrain nor Pakistan have contributed troops to the US-led coalition in Iraq to make them obvious targets of insurgents, though Bahrain is home to a large US naval base.
Arab League chief Amr Mussa said "security threats to Arab diplomats in Baghdad -- whether it be by way kidnapping as happened to the Egyptian diplomat or by targeting the Bahraini envoy -- only serve the interests of those trying to sever links between the Arab world and Iraq."
He called on the abductors of Ihab al-Sharif to release him.
Al-Arabiya television later reported that the group of Al-Qaeda's frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed Sharif's abduction but made no demands.
For his part, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan sharply condemned attacks on diplomats in Iraq.
In a statement released by his office, he said he was "deeply dismayed" by the recent rash of attacks, which he "vehemently condemns."
"There can be no justification for the targeting of diplomats. As with earlier attacks against the United Nations and other international actors in Iraq, the secretary general hopes these latest attacks will not weaken the resolve of the international community to stand with the Iraqi people at this critical juncture in their history," Annan's office said.
In August 2003, UN special representative for Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello died in his office in Baghdad after a bomber detonated a deadly truck bomb outside the UN compound in the city. The bomb also claimed the lives of 21 other UN workers.
Sharif was set to become the first ambassador from an Arab nation to Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein and was the first head of mission to be abducted since Iraq's hostage crisis began more than 13 months ago.
The Iraqi government's spokesman said Sharif's security may have been compromised by contacts he may have had with political groups with ties to insurgents.
"The only advice we give is that if a diplomat from this mission or another wants to contact political groups that may be close to armed groups then the least he can do is tell the government which can bear some responsibility," Leith Kubba told reporters.
"We do not know the circumstances (surrounding Sharif's kidnapping) but this is one of the possibilities."
Kubba said the targeting of foreign diplomats is part of an effort by insurgents to discourage countries from dealing with the Iraqi government.
"It is a message of terror to other diplomatic missions not to expand their presence in Iraq," he said. "No doubt it is negative and we condemn it, but in the big scheme of things it will not affect our progress."
Insurgents briefly held another Egyptian diplomat in July 2004 and also kidnapped an Iranian envoy, but both were later released unharmed.
In further violence, 15 Iraqis were killed in various parts of the country, including four women employed at Baghdad airport when the minibus taking them to work was attacked in the western part of the capital, an interior ministry source said. Another three were wounded.
And a US soldier was killed and two others wounded by a homemade bomb in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, the army said.
Switzerland's foreign minister, meanwhile, summoned the US ambassador to explain the death in Baghdad of an Iraqi Kurd with Swiss nationality who was shot by an American soldier last week.
He's a blue blood from Maine he has ZERO cowboy in him that been Roves sale job all along it's really quite sad the US public doesn't know that they all think he's a rancher even though he doesn't even ride or own horses :wink:
