Iran accused the United States on Tuesday of being behind the abduction of an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad, but U.S. officials refused even to confirm that a kidnapping had taken place as the two countries' campaign of finger-pointing was brought up another notch.
Iranian officials said Jalal Sharafi, their embassy's second secretary, had not been seen since gunmen in Iraqi military uniforms intercepted his car Sunday as he left a branch of a state-owned Iranian bank.
"They acted under U.S. supervision," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini said in a statement released in Tehran. He described the incident as a "terrorist attack."
The Bush administration has accused Iran of fueling the sectarian warfare in Iraq by providing Shiite Muslim extremists with weapons and explosives being used against U.S. troops and Sunni Arab targets. U.S. officials have been holding five Iranians seized last month in a raid in the northern city of Irbil. The Iranian officials are accused of planning attacks on Americans.
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