Body of Egyptian found in Iraq, France waits word

The body of an Egyptian who was kidnapped last month has been found in northern Iraq, police said yesterday, while French leaders held a crisis meeting in Paris on the fate of two French hostages.

Police said the body of the Egyptian, who was snatched on Aug. 27, was found on Saturday at a roadside near the town of Baiji, 180km north of Baghdad. It said the body bore signs of torture, with hands and legs bound together.

The man disappeared after assailants killed another Egyptian. Both men were working in Baiji.

Militant groups waging a bloody insurgency against the US-backed interim Iraqi government have turned to kidnapping foreigners as part of a campaign to force firms and foreign troops to leave Iraq. About two dozen foreign hostages have been killed, some of them beheaded.

The grim news came as French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, in Paris after returning empty-handed from a Middle East rescue mission, met President Jacques Chirac on the fate of journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot.

Barnier was due to hold talks with Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and other cabinet members.

Malbrunot and Chesnot were seized on Aug. 20 by militants from the Islamic army in Iraq, who demanded Paris rescind a law banning Muslim headscarves in state schools. France refused the demands and the law went into force on Thursday.

"According to the information we have at the moment Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot are in good health and are being treated correctly ... these indications encourage us to continue our efforts to secure their release," Barnier said.

France was shocked to be caught up in the hostage crisis as it opposed the US-led war in Iraq and has no troops there.

Besides grappling with a hostage crisis, Iraq's government, working with US-led forces, is trying to crack down on an insurgency ahead of elections in January.

After a relative lull in violence in recent days, a suicide bomber detonated his vehicle near a police academy in the city of Kirkuk on Saturday, killing at least 17 people and wounding 36, in the latest attack on Iraqi security forces.

Police said the head of the bomber, with a long beard, was found among the debris scattered by the blast around 150 metres from the police building. Four civilian vehicles and one police car were destroyed.

The attack came as hundreds of police were leaving the building and the street was crowded, police said, adding at least 14 policemen were killed and three civilians.

Guerrillas opposed to Iraq's interim government and its US backers have repeatedly attacked Iraqi police stations with suicide bombs, killing hundreds.

Near Baghdad, three Iraqi policemen were killed during operations against insurgents, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. The three died when their car blew up in raids against insurgents in the Latifiya area, a hotbed of guerrilla activity just south of the capital.

Also on Saturday, US-led forces backed by warplanes battled insurgents west of the city of Mosul. At least 13 people were killed and 52 wounded in the clashes in the town of Tallafar, doctors and the US military said.

A US helicopter made a forced landing during the fighting, wounding two crew members, the military said.

Doctors said nine civilians were killed, and many of the wounded were women and children.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq