AMMAN A senior Iraqi diplomat along with his wife and six other Iraqi citizens were stabbed to death overnight in Jordan in an attack Baghdad condemned Sunday as a cowardly act. The killings, first revealed by the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, have been confirmed by the Iraqi Embassy in Amman and the Jordanian authorities. Hekmat al-Hejju, the number two in the embassy, was with his wife at the home of friends when the attack occurred, an Iraqi Embassy official.

Hejju, 45, has been posted in Amman for four years, the embassy official said, adding that the attack was politically motivated. A Jordanian official told AFP the eight were knifed to death at the home of a wealthy Iraqi, Sami George, in Rabieh, a wealthy area in west Amman. A woman who survived the attack but is in a critical condition, told police that four or five people who spoke with Iraqi accents were behind the killings.

The testimony of this woman will be crucial, a source close to the investigation told AFP, but declined to give further details about her identity. Police have revealed that one of those killed was an Egyptian working in George's home and that one was a woman. An Iraqi millionaire businessman, Nemir Oji, married to a Lebanese woman was also among the dead, police said.

The Jordanian police have cordoned off George's three storey villa where the killings took place. George, an Iraqi, has been living in Jordan for several years. Iraq's official INA news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that Hejju was assassinated in a cowardly act. He called on the Jordanian authorities to immediately open an inquiry and identify those behind the attack, which followed the attempted assassination of another Iraqi diplomat based in Amman two weeks ago.

The spokesman expressed his deep concern about this series of unprecedented aggressions against Iraqi diplomats in Jordan, but gave no further details about the circumstances of the attack. (AFP)