Charge d'affaires Ali Belaroussi and Ezzedin Ben Kadi were nabbed from their car.

"I was on the other side of the main road when I saw people in two cars pull the men out of their car and take them. No shots were fired," a third Algerian diplomat, Abdel Wahab Fellah, told AFP.

"I couldn't do anything. I just called the police," he said.

The kidnapping occurred near the Al-Sa'aa restaurant in the Al-Mansur district of west Baghdad at 2:10 pm.

According to the interior ministry, the kidnappers' cars had number plates from Al-Anbar province, a rebel bastion in western Iraq.

This was the second high-profile kidnapping within a month after the abduction of Egytian ambassador-designate Ihab al-Sharif on July 2 from a Baghdad street.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the frontman of al-Qaeda in Iraq, later claimed the abduction. Sharif's execution was announced by his kidnappers on July 7.

Within four days of Sharif's kidnapping, Bahrain's envoy was wounded in a failed kidnap attempt, while the Pakistani ambassador was fired on and the Russian ambassador's car riddled with bullets.

Iraqi insurgents launched their attacks on diplomats in a bid to isolate the Iraqi government and dissuade Arab countries from raising the level of their diplomatic representation, Iraqi officials and foreign envoys have said.

Zarqawi, who has a 25 million dollar US price on his head, has claimed responsibility for a large number of the attacks, kidnappings and murders in Iraq since the US-led invasion overthrew Saddam Hussein two years ago.

In fresh Iraqi violence two suicide car bombings and other attacks in and around Baghdad yesterday killed 14 people, police and army officials said.

Sunni Arabs also decided to continue boycotting the committee drafting Iraq's new constitution until their demands were met.

A suicide car bomber rammed into an Iraqi army checkpoint south of Baghdad, killing five soldiers in Mahmoudiyah, about 20 miles south of the capital. Several other soldiers were injured, according to army Lt. Odai al-Zeiadi.

A second Iraqi army checkpoint in the southern Baghdad suburb of Bueitha was also hit by a suicide car bomber, killing one soldier, al-Zeiadi said. Six soldiers were injured, he said.

Unidentified gunmen assassinated three members of the Qadisiyah provincial council as they were heading to an Internet cafe in the western neighborhood of Khadhra, said police 1st Lt. Mohammad Al-Hiyali.

In Baghdad's Shia enclave of Sadr City, an employee of the Ministry of Trade was killed in a drive-by shooting, said police 1st Lt. Talib Naim said.

"Salman Lazim Shikara was heading to work when gunmen in a speeding car sprayed him with machine guns inside his car," Naim said.

Explosives were thrown into the compound of a British security firm in the western Yarmouk neighborhood, killing one Iraqi guard and injuring two others, said police Maj. Falah Al-Mihamadawi. Witnesses said the armed attackers had driven up in a speeding car.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi patrol detonated at dawn in Latifiyah, killing three and injuring three, said a Babil provincial police spokesman. Latifiyah is located about 30km south of Baghdad in a Sunni insurgent-heavy area known as the Triangle of Death.

Sunni Arabs also decided Thursday to continue boycotting the committee drafting Iraq's new constitution pending an international investigation into the assassinations of two colleagues and until other demands are met, one of the group said.

Kamal Hamdoun, one of the 12 remaining Sunnis appointed to the commission last month, said the decision to stay away from committee meetings was made during talks with Sunni community leaders following Tuesday's assassination of a Sunni delegate and an adviser.

The decision casts doubt on whether the committee can meet an August deadline to finish the constitution. Even if the Shia and Kurdish members decided to try to meet the deadline without the Sunnis, questions would be raised over the legitimacy of a charter and whether it would win Sunni approval in an October referendum.

Fifteen Sunnis were appointed to the parliamentary committee last month in a move to lure many in the influential minority away from the insurgency. However, two members resigned under rebel threats.

Two prominent Sunnis committee member Mijbil Issa and adviser Dhamin Hussein al-Obeidi were assassinated in front of a Baghdad restaurant two days ago prompting other Sunnis to suspend participation in the process.