In Cairo, the government said it had sought help from Iraqi authorities to determine whether Sherif had been abducted. Authorities in Baghdad said the ambassador's office was not aware that he was missing until yesterday morning, when a driver went to pick him up at his home.
''The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs hopes for a speedy clarification of the situation and the safeguarding of the security of the Egyptian diplomat who is charged with strengthening relations between the two brotherly peoples of Egypt and Iraq," the ministry said in a statement.
Egypt recently announced that it would upgrade its mission in Baghdad to an embassy, becoming the first Arab nation to be represented by an ambassador since the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
Many had seen the naming of an ambassador as an expression of confidence among Arabs in the new government, but Sherif's disappearance could deter other neighboring nations from following Egypt's lead.
The Iraqi government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari is struggling to deal with an insurgency led by Sunni Arabs and foreign Islamic extremists that has led to more than 1,700 deaths since the government was formed in April. Insurgent attacks continued yesterday, as a car bomb killed three Iraqi police officers at a checkpoint north of Baghdad.
But US forces also have been responsible for the deaths of numerous civilians. In an unusually blunt criticism of the US military yesterday, the Iraqi government's chief spokesman called on US troops to reduce the killing of unarmed civilians on streets and during house-to-house searches.
Laith Kubba said he deplored the shooting deaths of two Iraqi journalists and a cousin of Iraq's ambassador to the UN and said Jaafari would raise the matter at the ''highest levels" of the US government. ''I can tell you, Iraqis are not happy about it," Kubba said.
US forces maintain that they cannot take unnecessary risks and that they fire at suspicious vehicles to prevent car-bomb attacks on military convoys and checkpoints.
