Iraqi PM rejects kidnapping deal

The group said the kidnap was in reply to Egypt's offer of security aid

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has called on Egypt not to bow to kidnappers who seized an Egyptian diplomat in Baghdad.

"The only way to deal with terrorists is to bring them to justice," Mr Allawi said during a visit to Syria.

Mohamed Mamdouh Qutb was abducted by gunmen as he left a mosque in the Iraqi capital on Friday.

A militant group said it took Mr Qutb hostage in response to Egypt's offer of security aid to Iraq's government.

A BBC correspondent says Cairo has offered equipment and training for Iraqi security troops.

However, since the hostage-taking Egypt has been insisting that it has not offered to deploy troops in Iraq.

In a fresh kidnapping, the director of a state-owned Iraqi construction company was seized by gunmen as he drove to work on Saturday, an interior ministry spokesman said.

'Close ranks'

Mr Allawi told reporters in Damascus: "The only way to deal with terrorists is to bring them to justice and to close ranks and we hope that Egypt and the Egyptian government would act accordingly."

FOREIGN HOSTAGES - STILL MISSING Mohamed Mamdouh Qutb, Egyptian diplomat - taken 23 July Antaryami and Tilak Raj, Sukhdev Singh (India), Jalal Mohammed Awadhi, Faiz Khamis Salim and Ibrahim Khamis (Kenya) and Mohammed Ali (Egypt), lorry drivers - taken 21 July Mohammed Omar, Turkish driver - taken 17 July Ivaylo Kepov, Bulgarian driver - taken 8 July Saad Sadoun, Kuwaiti driver - taken 5 June Elias, thought American - taken 3 May Wael Mamduh, Jordanian businessman - taken 11 April US soldier Keith Maupin - taken 9 April (reported but not confirmed killed). Taken with him were US contractors William Bradley and Timothy Bell, still missing. Muhammad Rifat, jail worker from Canada - taken 8 April

The interim prime minister visited Cairo this week and discussed the possibility of using Egyptian troops to train Iraq's forces.

But Egyptian officials have stressed that no deal was struck.

"Egypt sending any forces or military personnel to Iraq was not a matter that has been proposed at all," the country's official news agency Mena quoted Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit as saying.

Mr Qutb is the most senior official and first foreign diplomat to be kidnapped in Iraq since militants began taking hostages in April.

A group calling itself the Lions of Allah Brigade says it is holding him captive.

Deadline extended

In a separate development, the captors of seven foreign truck drivers - including an Egyptian hostage - issued a new deadline to the hostages' Kuwaiti employer.

In a video broadcast on the Arabic satellite TV station al-Jazeera, the kidnappers apparently issued a fresh, 48-hour deadline for Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport to shut its operations in Iraq.

In the tape, the Black Banners group also increased their demands, adding that Iraqi prisoners be freed from Kuwaiti and US jails and the company pay compensation to the families of those killed in American attacks on the town of Falluja.

They had threatened to kill one hostage every three days, starting on Saturday. But that deadline has apparently been extended by 48 hours.