IRAQ: Gunmen seized a French engineer from outside his home in Baghdad yesterday, beating him as he was hauled into a getaway car, neighbours said.
It was the third kidnapping of Westerners in Iraq in 10 days, after a lull in such abductions in recent months.
French and Iraqi officials identified him as Bernard Planche, an employee of a non-governmental organisation who worked at the Rusafa water treatment plant in eastern Baghdad.
In Paris, the French government confirmed Mr Planche's disappearance and said it was doing its best to secure his release - an assurance that President Jacques Chirac also made to the victim's daughter, Isabelle Planche.
"All the services of the French government are fully mobilised to ensure his release as quickly as possible," Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told reporters.
The Frenchman was snatched by seven gunmen in two cars as he prepared to leave his home yesterday morning in the west Baghdad district of Mansour, police quoted witnesses as saying.
Small pools of blood were left outside the gates of his house.
One neighbour told Reuters the gunmen hit a screaming Mr Planche as they dragged him away, while witnesses looked on helpless.
The kidnapping follows the abduction of German archaeologist and aid worker Susanne Osthoff on November 25th and that of four Christian peace activists - two from Canada and one each from Britain and the United States - the following day.
Hours after Mr Planche's abduction, Muslim scholars and activists from around the world - including leaders of the militant Hamas and Lebanese Hizbollah guerrilla groups - appealed for the release of the Christian aid workers.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw held out the possibility last night of contact with the kidnappers of British hostage Norman Kember.
But officials denied reports that there had been direct communication with the group holding the 74-year-old peace activist so far.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "Sadly, while we wish this were the case, unfortunately it has not happened."
The foreign hostages snatched in the past 10 days have all appeared in videos released by groups claiming to be part of the insurgency and shown on Al Jazeera television.
Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld assailed US news coverage of the Iraq war yesterday and accused journalists of rushing to find fault with the US and its military.
He spoke just days after the US military acknowledged that it had paid Iraqi newspapers to publish pro-American news stories written by an "information operations" task force. Mr Rumsfeld complained that the issue "has been pounded in the media" but "we don't know what the facts are yet".
Opinion polls show declining public support for the war and confidence in President Bush's leadership.