Senior airport сcommunications official kidnapped in Baghdad

Gunmen kidnapped a senior airport official along with his driver and companion in western Baghdad as he was heading to work by car on Wednesday.

"Armed men in three cars kidnapped Maher Yaseen Jasim, the head of communications in the Baghdad International Airport, along with his driver and a male employee at about 9:15 a.m. (0515 GMT) in Mansur district, as they were heading to work," an interior ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The upscale, largely residential neighborhood, home to many foreign embassies, was the site of last week's abduction of two Algerian diplomats.

In a video released Tuesday, Iraq's most feared terror group, al-Qaida in Iraq, said it had condemned to death Algerian diplomats Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi.

The group had earlier Tuesday purportedly said in an Internet statement that it would kill the two men, who were shown blindfolded, but there was no word on whether the threat had been carried out.