IRAQ Gunmen abduct contractor; truck drivers are kidnapped

Hungary's prime minister said his country will withdraw troops from Iraq.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Gunmen abducted a Lebanese-American contractor who worked with the U.S. Army from his Baghdad home, Iraqi officials said today, while four Jordanian truck drivers were seized by assailants in a separate kidnapping.
Radim Sadeq, a Lebanese-American contractor with a mobile phone company, was snatched by gunmen when he answered the door of his home in Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood overnight, Lt. Col. Maan Khalaf said.
It was the second abduction this week in upscale Mansour, where many foreign companies are based. On Monday, gunmen stormed the two-story compound of a Saudi company, abducting six people, including an American, a Nepalese, a Filipino and three Iraqis, after a bloody gunbattle that left an Iraqi guard and one attacker dead.
Car bomb
Also today, a car bomb exploded near a bus carrying airport employees to work in Baghdad, injuring nine people.
Gunmen also killed an Oil Ministry official, Hussein Ali al-Fattal, in a drive-by shooting as he was on his way to work, the ministry said.
More than 160 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's regime fell in April last year. Some kidnapping groups seek ransom, while others pursue political motives such as the withdrawal of foreign companies and troops from Iraq. Kidnappers have killed about 30 hostages.
CARE director's fate
Meanwhile, the kidnappers of aid worker Margaret Hassan are threatening to hand her over to Al-Qaida-linked militants notorious for beheading hostages unless Britain agrees within 48 hours to pull its troops from Iraq, an Arabic television station reports.
The threat to Hassan, the Iraq director for CARE International, was made in a videotape received by Al-Jazeera television but not broadcast in its entirety because the station said it was "too graphic."
Instead, it transmitted a segment Tuesday night showing a hooded gunman but without sound. The newscaster said the kidnappers gave Britain 48 hours to meet their demands, "primarily the withdrawal" of British troops.
Otherwise, the 59-year-old Hassan will be handed over to Al-Qaida in Iraq, a group headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. His followers have beheaded at least six hostages: three Americans, a Briton, a Japanese and a South Korean.
Meanwhile, there has been no word on an American and two other foreigners -- one Filipino and a Nepalese -- abducted Monday night in Baghdad.
Elsewhere, Hungary's new prime minister said today his country will withdraw its 300 non-combat troops from Iraq by March 31, contending that staying longer would be an "impossibility."
"We are obliged to stay there until the [Iraqi] elections. To stay longer is an impossibility," Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said at a ceremony to mark the end of mandatory military service in Hungary.
Date for elections
The Iraqi elections are due to be held by Jan. 31.
The former communist country, which joined the European Union in May, sent the troops as part of the U.S.-led coalition, but the government has been under mounting pressure from citizens and opposition parties who oppose the soldiers' presence.
Recent polls show that about 60 percent of Hungarians wanted the government to withdraw the country's troops from Iraq immediately.
The announcement was a symbolic blow to President Bush, who has struggled to keep the U.S.-led multinational force from unraveling since Spain pulled out its 1,300 troops earlier this year.