|
Gunmen wound Bahrain's envoy in Baghdad
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. Also a roadside bomb exploded close to a US military patrol in Baghdad, near the Iranian embassy but it was not damaged. Earlier, about four gunmen opened fire on the envoy's car in the capital's upscale Mansour neighbourhood as he was being driven to work, a police 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 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," a 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 armour plating had deflected other bullets. Bahrain has close ties to the United States as host to a major US 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. Posted by: Paul Moloney 2005-07-05 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=123184 |