{Ban Ki-moon phones PM Abadi to urge prompt action for the safe return of more than two dozen Qataris taken by gunmen.}<\/p>\n
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern on Wednesday for two dozen Qataris abducted in southern Iraq earlier this month and pressed the prime minister to secure their immediate release. <\/p>\n
Unidentified gunmen in dozens of pick-up trucks abducted the Qataris, including children, from their desert camp while they were on a falconry expedition. Nine people at the camp reportedly managed to escape and cross into Kuwait.
\nNo immediate claim of responsibility for the abductions has been made. A number of armed militia operate in the remote area. <\/p>\n
Ban called Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Wednesday to express his concern about the mass kidnapping of the Qataris, and urged his government to do “everything possible to ensure their prompt and safe return”. <\/p>\n
Qatar has repeatedly said its nationals had crossed into Iraqi territory with an official permit from the Iraqi interior ministry.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Gulf Corporation Council also called on the Iraqi government to “take decisive and immediate measures” to free the Qataris. <\/p>\n
Iraq’s Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said: “I deny categorically that this issue has any relation to the Iraqi government.”<\/p>\n
Source:Al Jazeera:[UN chief presses Iraq on abducted Qataris->http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2015\/12\/chief-presses-iraq-abducted-qataris-151230182443357.html]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Ban Ki-moon phones PM Abadi to urge prompt action for the safe return of more than two dozen Qataris taken by gunmen.} UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern on Wednesday for two dozen Qataris abducted in southern Iraq earlier this month and pressed the prime minister to secure their immediate release. Unidentified gunmen in dozens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000071203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-22221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000071203,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22221.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22221.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22221.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22221.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22221.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22221.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000071203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22221"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=22221"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=22221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}