The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said it will reduce its foreign staff in Iraq, after its headquarters in Baghdad was bombed on Monday. The agency, which has about 30 international and 600 Iraqi staff in Iraq, stressed it was not pulling out of the country. Two ICRC workers were among more than three dozen people killed in a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks in the Iraqi capital. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell personally appealed to the head of the ICRC not to withdraw its foreign staff from Iraq. The ICRC’s decision to scale back came a day after medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said it would pull out four of its seven expatriate staff in Iraq following the Red Cross attack. Other aid agencies and non-governmental organisations reduced their staffing levels in Iraq, or pulled out entirely, after the UN headquarters in Baghdad was bombed in August, killing at least 20 people. Full Story
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