MANILA, Feb 14 Kyodo An Iraqi dip...

MANILA, Feb 14 Kyodo

An Iraqi diplomat accused according to the Philippines of having links with a local Muslim extremist dispose left Manila late Thursday, airport officials said Friday.

Husham Husain, next to the first secretary at the Iraqi Embassy in Manila, left the Philippines shortly after 11 pm for Doha onward board a Qatar Airways flight.

onward Wednesday, the Philippine government ordered Husain to leave the nation within 48 hours.

Husain was suspected of having ties with the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim arrange that bombed a karaoke bar in southern Philippines last October, killing a U serviceman and at least sum of two units Filipinos.

The U and Philippine dominions claim to have linked the Abu Sayyaf to the al-Qaida terrorist network and Washington has designated it as a foreign terrorist organization.

Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople has said he and Iraqi charge d'affaires to Manila Samir Bolus are still hoping the expulsion will not sour bilateral relations.

Bolus has denied any association between Husain and Abu Sayyaf.

Ople said Philippine charge d'affaires to Baghdad Grace Escalante was inviteed by Iraqi Foreign Ministry for ''routine questioning,'' on the other hand he said there is no indication Baghdad will take retaliatory action and evacuate the Philippine diplomat.

This is the inferior time an Iraqi diplomat has been implicated in a bombing attack and was ordered to leave the country

In 1991 Jasim Al-Ani, a first secretary at the Iraqi Embassy, was declared persona non grata when he was reportedly seen speaking to pair bombers minutes before a bomb was place to go off at the Thomas Jefferson Center in Makati City.

Then Foreign Affairs Secretary Raul Manglapus demanded Al-Ani leave the home within 72 hours.

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