Gunmen wound Bahrain's envoy in Baghdad
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-05 16:33

Bahrain's envoy in Iraq was shot and slightly wounded by gunmen who opened fire on his car in Baghdad on Tuesday, the second attack on a senior Arab diplomat in the city in three days, police and hospital sources said.

About four gunmen opened fire on the envoy's car in the capital's upscale Mansour neighborhood as he was being driven to work, a police source said.

A hospital source said the envoy, whose name was given by a Bahrain Foreign Ministry official as Hassan Malalla al-Ansari, was wounded in the right hand by a single bullet.

The motive was unclear.

"The embassy said he was hit by a bullet after he left his house, but it is not clear if he was targeted or if it was a stray bullet," the Foreign Ministry official told Reuters.

Police at the scene, where the envoy's white luxury saloon with red diplomatic plates was standing spattered inside with blood, said Ansari appeared to have been driving alone.

A least two bullet holes were visible in the car's plastic lights. Scratches on the paintwork indicated that armor plating had deflected other bullets.

Egyptian diplomats have speculated that their chief envoy, who was snatched by gunmen when he stopped to buy a newspaper on Saturday, may have been targeted by Sunni Arab insurgents because Cairo was considering upgrading its diplomatic ties with Iraq's new, Shi'ite-led, U.S.-backed government.

The envoy, Ihab el-Sherif, had not been heard of by Monday.

Iraq had said last week that Cairo was about to elevate Ihab el-Sherif to full ambassador rank, becoming the first Arab diplomat with that title in Baghdad since U.S. forces overthrew Saddam Hussein.

Bahrain has close ties to the United States as host to a major U.S. naval base in the Gulf that played a role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Though like most Arab states it is ruled by Sunni Muslims, many of its people are Shi'ites, like the majority of Iraqis and non-Arab Iran.

DIPLOMATIC TIES

U.S. and Iraqi leaders have urged other Arab states to give full recognition to the 10-week-old Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari by upgrading diplomatic ties.

Many Sunni Arabs are suspicious, however, of the Iraqi government's support from the United States and its Islamist leaders sectarian ties with neighboring Iran.

Jaafari announced on Monday that a new phase in anti-insurgency operations would begin on Tuesday, giving no details.

Six weeks ago, a similar declaration heralded Operation Lightning, a continuing clampdown on bombers and gunmen in Baghdad that had, at the last count, brought in over 1,200 detainees. Dawn raids on Monday rounded up over 100 suspects, including Egyptians and other foreigners.

"Tomorrow, a new plan will be launched, reinforcing our raids," Jaafari told reporters. After something of a lull in the first month of Operation Lightning, there have been several big suicide attacks in the capital over the past two weeks.

Political efforts to undermine the revolt among Saddam's fellow minority Sunnis are also moving forward, with new Sunni delegates expected to meet for the first time later on Tuesday with the parliamentary committee that is drafting a new constitution.

Washington and Baghdad are trying to use diplomacy and politics to defuse the Sunni Arab insurgency that has grown much more violent since the government took power in April after a January election in which few Sunnis took part.

Iraq's parliament formally welcomed on Tuesday 15 new Sunni Arab members to the committee tasked with writing a constitution, making it the first national political body to include significant representation from Saddam's formerly dominant 20 percent minority since the election.

Committee chairman Humam Hamoudi told Reuters the Sunnis would join the other members on Tuesday: "Tomorrow after lunch we will meet and we will organize the work of sub-committees. We will show (the new members) the drafts we have reached so far."

The committee was expanded to 71 members to include more Sunni Arabs. Previously there were just two.

The committee, which must agree on a draft constitution by Aug. 15 ahead of an October referendum and December election, will have its first full meeting on Wednesday, Hamoudi said.

He said the main bones of contention would probably be the extent to which the constitution described Iraq as an Arab state, and the boundaries and degree of autonomy of federal regions,like the mainly Kurdish -- non-Arab -- north.

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