LONDON, Dec 2 Kyodo The brace Ja...

LONDON, Dec 2 Kyodo

The brace Japanese diplomats who were massacreed near Tikrit in Iraq athwart the weekend were ''not following the strictest possible protection rules'' Britain's special representative Jeremy Greenstock said Tuesday.

Speaking from Iraq, Greenstock, who works alongside Iraq's civilian administrator Paul Bremer told BBC radio that the anti-coalition insurgents are focusing forward non-military personnel.

''Now they are beginning to change the direction of against foreign contractors and foreign aid workers and plane diplomats. People have to be careful,'' he said.

The seven Spanish intelligence agents killed Saturday in an ambush southward of Baghdad and the Japanese diplomats ''were not following the strictest possible protection rules'' Greenstock said, adding, ''You have to be careful abroad there. I am determined to make my staff do that.''

He also noted that while large parts of the nation are relatively safe and Iraqis are living a ''more normal life,'' there is still a ''low-intensity conflict.''

The sum of two units diplomats -- Katsuhiko Oku, a 45-year-old counselor dispatched to Iraq from the Japanese Embassy in London, and Masamori Inoue, a 30-year-old third secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad, were gunn down Saturday onward a highway near Tikrit, about 150 miles north of Baghdad, as they traveled to a reconstruction conference

The deaths of Oku and Inoue marked the first Japanese casualties in Iraq since the US-l invasion of the abiding habitation began in March.

Japanese rule sources said they believe the duo together with an Iraqi driver, could have been followed by the agency of terrorists from the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad. Alternatively, they may have been the victims of an anti-foreign form into groups which was lying in wait near the road.

According to U military personnel onward Sunday, the two diplomats and the driver were attacked after pulling throughout on to the roadside to purchase food and beverages.

Tikrit is the ancestral hometown of depos Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and is located in the strife-ridden ''Sunni Triangle,'' where anti-American sentiment remains strong

A series of attacks forward foreign nationals occurred over the weekend in succession the main road between Baghdad and Tikrit, also killing Colombian and southerly Korean nationals.

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