Pakistan despatches kidnap envoy

Mr Javed's wife (with photo), mother and father in Islamabad

Pakistan is sending a special envoy to Baghdad to co-ordinate efforts to free a kidnapped embassy employee.

The employee, Malik Mohammed Javed, went missing in Iraq's capital on Saturday. A group called the Omar bin Khattab militia said it abducted him.

The Pakistani government believes that the motive for the kidnapping is most likely ransom money.

More than 150 foreigners have been taken hostage over the past year in Iraq, with some of them killed.

Previously unknown

Pakistan's special envoy, Ehsanullah Khan, has been tasked with holding talks with the Iraqi authorities and, if the situation arises, with the abductors.

The Pakistani authorities were also in touch with the influential forum of clerics, the Iraqi Islamic Party, in the hope it may use its influence to contact the abductors.

Based on the latest information from Baghdad, Islamabad seemed confident that Mr Javed was safe and in good health.

A foreign ministry spokesman said his abductors had allowed him to speak to Pakistan's charge d'affaires a number of times, with the last contact on Sunday night.

The spokesman said the Omar bin Khattab militia was a previously unknown group.

He said Mr Javed, who does not have diplomatic status, had committed no crime to deserve the abduction.

But he refused to say whether any ransom payment was being considered to secure his release.

Two migrant workers from Pakistan-controlled Kashmir were abducted and killed in July last year, but another kidnapped Pakistani was freed the same month.