Gunmen killed one Russian embassy employee and kidnapped four others in Baghdad today, Russian and Iraqi officials said, in the latest attack on foreigners in the lawless capital.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Moscow said the victims were all Russian nationals working at the embassy.
Iraqi Interior Ministry sources said gunmen in three cars blocked a road in the well-to-do Mansour district and opened fire on the embassy vehicle. A police source and a nearby resident said the victims had been buying food.
Television footage showed a white sports utility vehicle with a smashed window in front of a grocery store, its trunk filled with vegetables and other foodstuffs.
Blood on the pavement suggested someone had been shot outside the car, but this could not immediately be confirmed.