CAIRO, July 4 , 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – The abduction of the head of the Egyptian diplomatic mission in Baghdad sends a strong message from Iraqi resistance groups to Arab countries set to follow the Egyptian lead by sending ambassadors to occupied Iraq, Egyptian experts have said.

"Sending an ambassador to an unstable Iraq was a wrong decision that prompted resistance groups to kidnap Ihab El-Sherif as a warning shot for willing Arab countries," Abdallah El-Ashaal, a former Egyptian assistant foreign minister, told IslamOnline.net.

Egyptian and Iraqi officials said Monday that Kidnappers who seized Sherif on Saturday, July2 , have not yet contacted authorities or presented any demands.

The envoy, a father of two, was cornered by gunmen in cars while on a short trip to buy a newspaper near his home and had not been heard from since.

His white four-wheel vehicle was found undamaged near a newspaper stand.

Ashaal said that the US has made a "Trojan Horse" out of Arab heavyweight Egypt, striking a "suspicious" deal with Cairo to send an ambassador to Iraq to encourage other Arab countries to do the same.

"Washington further wants to implicate Arab countries like Egypt in the current Iraqi quagmire and a cauldron of looming civil war," added the expert.

Iraq announced last week that Egypt would become the first Arab country to give its Baghdad envoy the full title of ambassador since US forces toppled Saddam Hussein more than two years ago.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit appealed Sunday, July3 , for Sherif's release, saying the envoy was trying his best to serve the interests of the Iraqi people.

A senior Egyptian diplomat was kidnapped in the Iraqi capital a year ago and released unharmed after several days of ordeal.

Backtrack

On the way out of the current ordeal, Ashaal said the Egyptian government should talk with Iraqi resistance leaders, backtrack on this adventure and reaffirm its opposition to the presence of or collaboration with US-led occupation troops.

"It was an expected move as resistance groups would not tolerate to see the Egyptian ambassador presenting his credentials to a president whose election was considered by them as illegal," he said.

Wahid Abdel Maguid, the deputy director of the Al-Aharam Center for Political and Strategic Studies, a Cairo-based think tank, agreed that the abduction was a warning shot to Arab countries.

He, however, said that sending Sherif was key for boosting Egyptian efforts aimed at serving the Iraqi people.

"Egypt, no doubt, is trying to help the Iraqis gain their independence, whether through peaceful or armed resistance, " he told IOL.

Foreign Hands

But former Egyptian ambassador to Afghanistan Ahmad El-Ghamrawi offered a different version of the abduction.

"Iraq has become an open arena for intelligence services and there is a strong possibility that Sherif was kidnapped by a foreign body to pit the Egyptians and the Iraqis against one another," he told IOL.

He said Sherif’s latest post as Egyptian charges d’affaires in Tel Aviv substantiate the theory that he might have been abducted by the Israeli intelligence services Mossad.

"Sherif has come to know a lot about Israel," Ghamrawi said.

"Israel also wants to tarnish the image of the Iraqi resistance in the eyes of the Egyptian people," he added.

The retired diplomat did not rule out a possible collaboration between the Mossad and the US occupation authorities to deprive the Iraqi resistance of the sympathy and solidarity of the Egyptian people.