TIKRIT, Dec 10: An Egyptian kidnapped in Iraq was found dead on Saturday near Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit. Mohammed Ibrahim al Hilali, 46, was abducted by gunmen under cover of darkness late on Friday outside his home in Tikrit, north of Baghdad.

His bullet-riddled body was discovered dumped on a roadside just north of the city.

Police said there was no claim for the abduction and murder, the latest in a resurgent foreign hostage crisis that has dogged Iraq over the last two weeks.

Ibrahim Hilali had been working to build a new medical clinic in a western neighbourhood of the town, a Sunni power base with a higher degree of development than much of Iraq.—AFP