Russia blames USA for tragedy with four Russian diplomats slain in Baghdad

Vladimir Putin may start today’s meeting with Russian diplomats at the Foreign Affairs Ministry with a moment of silence. The sad ceremony will be held in memory of the four officers of the Russian embassy killed in Baghdad.

	The four Russian diplomats brutally killed in Baghdad
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The third secretary of the Russian embassy in Iraq, Fyodor Zaitsev (27), security guard Oleg Fedoseyev (41), driver Anatoly Smirnov (33) and cook Rinat Agliulin (also in his late twenties) were brutally killed by al-Qaeda terrorists in Baghdad.

Russia’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs originally refused to confirm the fact of the murder yesterday. However, the officials had to acknowledge later in the evening that the four employees of the Russian embassy in Baghdad had been killed indeed.

The pessimistic conclusion has been made as a result of the analysis of the video tape that the terrorists uploaded on the Internet. The terrorists that killed the Russian officials in Baghdad are considered to be members of the al-Qaeda network in Iraq. The footage of the execution contains quite a number of contradictory factors. The hostages’ faces are not visible during the moment of the actual execution; some of them wear different shirts than those worn during the first days of captivity.

However, experts came to conclusion that the Russian hostages have been killed. The terrorists put two hostages on their knees, cut their heads off and shot the third hostage dead. It is still unknown how the fourth official died. The dead bodies of the killed Russian diplomats have not been found yet.

Moscow has urged the Iraqi administration and the command of the multinational forces in Iraq to take efforts and punish those who committed the horrible crime against the Russian citizens. It goes without saying that it will be extremely hard and almost impossible to find the murderers. The local authorities or the US administration do not seem to be able to do anything at this point either.

Russian officials stated yesterday that the coalition forces were responsible for security in Iraq, including the safety of foreign diplomats in Baghdad. “The responsibility for the execution of the Russian diplomats is the burden on the shoulders of all those who occupied Iraq. This crime is on their conscience,” deputy speaker of the Russian State Duma Lubov Sliska said.

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