KHARTOUM, Dec 30: Khart-oum is to close its embassy in Baghdad after Al Qaeda in Iraq threatened to kill five Sudanese hostages if it did not leave the strife-torn country, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday.

“The foreign ministry has decided to close down its embassy in Baghdad and withdraw its diplomats there as of today (Friday),” foreign ministry spokesman Jamal Mohamed Ibrahim told AFP by telephone.

AlQaeda on Thursday claimed the kidnapping of five Sudanese in an Internet statement, giving Khartoum 48 hours to break off diplomatic relations with Baghdad, close its embassy and “withdraw all its representatives” in Iraq in order to save its hostages.

On Dec 23, Khartoum said six Sudanese nationals, including the embassy’s second secretary Abdel Monem al-Huri and four embassy employees, had been seized by unknown assailants while exiting a mosque in the Iraqi capital.

The sixth hostage, whom Khartoum had called “a friend” of one of the employees, was not mentioned by the group.

The group said it had “arrested five employees of the Sudanese embassy in Baghdad, including ‘diplomats’”, in a statement signed by the Al Qaeda branch, headed by Iraq’s most-wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

“Al Qaeda in Iraq’s Islamic court has decided to give the Sudanese government 48 hours to clearly announce it is breaking off diplomatic relations with the (Iraqi) government in the Green Zone, closing its Baghdad embassy and withdrawing all its representatives” in Iraq, it added.—AFP