BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – Iraq appealed to its global partners Friday to defy al-Qaida’s “blackmail” and keep their diplomats in Baghdad despite the reported slaying of Egypt’s top envoy and threats against those who support the U.S.-backed administration.

A U.S. commander acknowledged more needs to be done to protect foreign diplomats and “we’ve got to do something very quickly.”

Elsewhere, one American soldier was killed and six were wounded in separate insurgent attacks north and south of the Iraqi capital.

At the G-8 summit in Scotland, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said his government would begin withdrawing about 300 troops from Iraq in September – subject to security conditions at the time.

The moves come as violent incidents in the Iraqi capital are declining since Iraq’s U.S.-backed forces launched an operation against insurgents in the city six weeks ago.

The commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. William G. Webster Jr., said car bombings had dropped from 14 to 21 a week in May to about seven or eight a week now. But he said it was “very difficult to know” whether the insurgency has been broken.

Iraqi officials have become concerned about a possible diplomat flight from Baghdad after a Web site claim Thursday by al-Qaida in Iraq that it had killed Egyptian envoy Ihab al-Sherif, who seized by up to eight gunmen on a street in western Baghdad last weekend.

Egyptian and Iraqi officials said Egypt would temporarily close its mission in Iraq and recall its staff – although al-Sherif’s body has not been found and the Web statement contained no photographic evidence of his death.

Pakistan’s Ambassador Mohammed Younis Khan left the country Wednesday after his convoy was fired on in a kidnap attempt. Bahrain’s top envoy, Hassan Malallah al-Ansari, was expected to leave soon after he was slightly wounded in a separate attempt.

In its Web statement, the country’s most feared terror group said it wanted to seize “as many ambassadors as we can” to punish governments that support Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government.

Those threats by a group responsible for numerous kidnappings, car-bombings and beheadings could undermine U.S. efforts to encourage regional acceptance for the new Iraqi government by neighboring countries, whose populations strongly oppose the American military presence here.

“If the rest of the diplomatic missions from Europe and the neighboring countries give in, this means that all the capitals of the world will be subjected to blackmail,” chief government spokesman Laith Kubba told The Associated Press. “Giving in to these groups and responding to their political demands means encouraging them to continue such actions.”

Kubba said he was certain that Iraqi and U.S. authorities could protect embassies and their staffs. Al-Sherif had no bodyguards when he was seized after stopping to buy a newspaper in a dangerous neighborhood, witnesses said. Most foreign embassies have their own security to bolster guards provided by the Iraqi security forces.

Webster, commander of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, acknowledged the new threat against diplomats and said American authorities were studying ways to improve security.

“We recognize that all of our forces must be available to help protect our international diplomats who are helping to begin relations with this new democratic government,” Webster told reporters at the Pentagon during a video-teleconference interview from Baghdad. “We’ve not finalized our plan yet, but we certainly recognize we’ve got to do something very quickly.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the attacks would not deter the United States, Egypt and other governments “from working together to build a more peaceful and prosperous Iraq.”

Casey also said the United States would work with the Iraqi government and security officials “to bring those responsible” for the Egyptian diplomat’s death to justice and to “eliminate the network behind them.”

Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesman Rajab Sukayri, said Jordan still planned to send an ambassador to Iraq despite the al-Qaida threat and the selection process “is being sped up.”

Berlusconi denied that his withdrawal plan was linked to any terrorist threats, adding that Italy “must come to a point where it must guarantee its own security.”

Relations between Washington and Rome were strained by the March killing of an Italian intelligence agent by American soldiers in Iraq.

Meanwhile, violence continued outside the capital. A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and wounded three Friday in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, the military said.

Separately, a roadside bomb and small arms fire wounded three U.S. soldiers in an attack on a coalition convoy some 25 miles south of Baghdad, according to the Polish military. A suicide car bomber also struck an Iraqi army convoy in Fallujah, witnesses said. Police had no details of the attack.

Shiite and Sunni clerics joined Friday in condemning the attacks on diplomats.

“We reject any attack against any diplomat because attacking the diplomats is an act that doesn’t serve our cause,” said Sheik Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarie of the Association of Muslim Scholars at Baghdad’s Um al-Qura mosque during Friday prayers.

A Shiite preacher also denounced the apparent killing and made a brief reference to Thursday’s London’s explosions that killed dozens in the city’s transit system.

“The explosions that occurred in London were barbaric acts by the terrorists,” said Sheikh Jalal al-Deen al-Saghir at the Shiite Baratha mosque in Baghdad.