Six Egyptians kidnapped in Iraq

Gunmen seized two Egyptians from their Baghdad office, the third in a new series of audacious operations to kidnap foreigners in the Iraqi capital this month.

In a separate attack that could be related, four Egyptians working for the same company were abducted west of the capital, an Egyptian diplomat in Baghdad said yesterday.

The attacks follow the kidnapping of two Americans and a Briton last week from their Baghdad home and the abduction of two Italian aid workers from their office earlier this month.

A group led by the United States' number one enemy in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says it will kill Briton Kenneth Bigley, 62, unless all Iraqi women are freed from US-run jails.

Zarqawi's group beheaded the two Americans taken with Mr Bigley and posted footage of the killings on the Internet.

In Baghdad, Iraqis handed out thousands of leaflets with a photo of Mr Bigley, pleading in Arabic for word on his whereabouts.

The series of abductions, coupled with deadly clashes, has raised fears that elections due in January could be postponed.

Speaking in Washington on Thursday, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said the poll would go ahead on time despite the violence and said the situation in Iraq had been exaggerated. Critics said he was trying to paint too rosy a picture of the crisis.

Italy dismissed claims by two guerilla groups saying they had killed the two female Italian aid workers.

Police said the Egyptians were snatched in their office late on Thursday by gunmen who overpowered and tied up their guards. A spokesman for Egyptian telecoms company Orascom, whose Iraqi unit employed the men, said the kidnappings were not political.

Besides hostage-takings by guerilla groups, criminal gangs in Iraq have kidnapped many people for ransom.

An Egyptian diplomat said four Egyptians and four Iraqis were also seized. Police said the eight were seized in Falluja, west of Baghdad. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry confirmed six Egyptians working for Orascom had been kidnapped in Iraq.

More than 100 foreign hostages have been seized since April in a deepening campaign. Most have been released, but around 30 have been killed, several of them beheaded.

Until this month, almost all the kidnapped foreigners were snatched on Iraq's perilous roads. But the capture of foreigners in Baghdad in operations that seem carefully planned is an escalation that has alarmed foreign embassies and firms.

President George W. Bush said on Thursday he and Mr Allawi would "stay the course" in Iraq and insisted elections would be held in January despite the violence and kidnappings.