Al Qaeda in Iraq warns foreign diplomats to leave

BAGHDAD -- The country's most feared terrorist group warned foreign diplomats yesterday to flee Iraq after announcing it will kill two kidnapped Moroccan Embassy employees. Insurgents killed 11 Iraqi security troops and an American soldier in separate attacks.

The warning came in a statement posted on an Islamist website in the name of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which also claimed responsibility for the July kidnap-slaying of two envoys from Algeria and one from Egypt, as well as the abduction and beheading of many foreign hostages.

On Thursday, another Internet statement attributed to the group said the two Moroccans had been condemned to death. There was no indication yesterday that they had been killed.

''We are renewing our threat to those so-called diplomatic missions who have insisted on staying in Baghdad and have not yet realized the repercussions of such a challenge to the will of the mujahedeen," yesterday's statement said.

The threat appeared aimed at undermining support for the US-backed Iraqi government within the Arab and Islamic worlds. In addition to the Egyptian and Algerian diplomats, senior envoys from Pakistan and Bahrain escaped kidnap attempts in July.

The Moroccans, driver Abderrahim Boualam and embassy staff member Abdelkrim el-Mouhafidi, disappeared Oct. 20 while driving to Baghdad from Jordan, where they had gone to pick up their paychecks.

Also yesterday, the US military announced it killed five senior Al Qaeda figures during an airstrike Oct. 29 against three buildings in Husaybah, a town near the Syrian border that is a major infiltration route for foreign fighters and would-be suicide bombers entering the country.

The five included at least one North African and were holding a strategy meeting when the airstrike occurred, the US statement added.

Iraq was relatively quiet yesterday as the majority Shi'ite Muslim community began celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Sunnis began the three-day holiday Thursday.

Still, the country was not free of violence.

Insurgents fired mortars at an Iraqi police checkpoint near Buhriz, a Sunni Arab stronghold 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, then stormed the position firing from eight vehicles, police said. Six policemen were killed and 10 were wounded, according to officials.

Five Interior Ministry commandos died when a roadside bomb exploded close to their convoy near Tuz Khormato, 130 miles north of Baghdad, police Brigadier General Sarhad Qadir said. Four commandos were wounded.

An American soldier from Task Force Baghdad was fatally wounded yesterday when a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy in east Baghdad, the military said. Another soldier died Thursday near Talil, 170 miles southeast of Baghdad, apparently of nonhostile causes, the military said. The deaths brought to 2,039 the number of US military service members who have died since the war began in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Elsewhere, insurgents fired a mortar round that missed an American base on the western outskirts of Baghdad but struck a home, killing a child and wounding the mother and another one of her children, police First Lieutenant Ahmed Ali said.

Two mortar shells exploded after sundown near the edge of Baghdad's green zone, which contains key Iraqi government offices and international missions. There were no casualties, police said.

Gunmen shot and killed Tarik Hasan, a former colonel in the Iraqi Air Force, as he drove through Baghdad on Thursday, said police Captain Talib Thamir. Rumor has spread through Baghdad that Shi'ite ''hit squads" are hunting former air force officers, especially those who fought Shi'ite-led Iran during the 1980-1988 war.

Despite the security crisis, families turned out in parks around the capital, putting aside their fears to celebrate the Eid holiday. In the Shi'ite district of Sadr City, children lined up for rides at small amusement parks. Security by police and local militias remained tight to protect people from bombs and drive-by shootings.