November 14, 2008	Friday	Ziqa'ad 15, 1429

PESHAWAR, Nov 13: Gunmen kidnapped an Iranian diplomat and killed his guard here on Thursday.

Hashmatullah Attaarzadeh, a commercial attaché at the Iranian consulate in Peshawar, was going to his office when three armed men blocked his car near his residence in Hayatabad Township, pulled him out of the car and took him away in a vehicle parked nearby.

Guard Sajjad Hussein, who was a police constable, was killed when he put up resistance. He was shot in the chest and head. He was buried at his ancestral graveyard in Maryamzai Mathni.

This was the second attack on foreigners in the city in two days. On Wednesday, gunmen killed a US aid worker and his Pakistani driver in the University Town.

On Sept 22, Afghan Ambassador-designate was kidnapped and his driver was killed.

City police chief Dr Mohammad Suleman said the increase in cases of kidnapping was a reaction to the military operation against militants in the city and tribal areas.

Witnesses said that three bearded men, two of them carrying Kalashnikov rifles, had sprayed the car with bullets, took hold of the diplomat and escaped. It all happened within a few minutes. The assailants also took away gun of the guard.

A resident said his son had taken the guard in the diplomat’s car to a hospital where he died. The diplomat’s car was then taken to the Hayatabad police station.

SP Cantonment Circle Abdul Qadir Qamar told Dawn that police had provided proper security at the residence of the diplomat and the death of the constable proved that.

He said that a CCTV camera installed on the Jamrud road could not catch the assailants’ car.

He said that an investigation team, headed by SSP (investigation) Mian Ghulam Mohammad and comprising SP Cantonment Circle, DSP and ASP Cant and an SHO, had been formed.

The incidents of killing, kidnapping and targeting foreigners and high profile personnel have been rampant in the city.

Iran condemned what it branded the “terrorist” kidnapping of one of its diplomats in Pakistan and called on the authorities to do all they can to find and free him, adds AFP.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashgavi said Tehran “strongly condemned” the abduction which he said described as a “terrorist act”.