A rchive Date
[ 13-04-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4684713/
Iraqi group claims it has 30 hostages
Separate video shows foreigner, apparently American, held prisoner
NBC News and news services
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi group said in footage aired by an Arab TV station on Saturday it was holding 30 foreign hostages and threatened to decapitate them unless U.S. forces lifted their blockade of the town of Fallujah. Separately, video taken by an Australian TV crew showed a man, apparently an American, being held prisoner in a car.
"We are calling for the withdrawal of American and coalition forces. We have Japanese, Bulgarian, Israeli, American, Spanish and Korean hostages. Their numbers are 30," a masked man holding a Kalashnikov rifle said in the videotape aired on Arab TV.
"If America doesn't lift its blockade of Fallujah their heads will be cut off," he said. The footage did not show any of the alleged hostages.
The speaker of the group of eight masked men said they were called the "Brigades of the Hero Martyr Sheikh Ahmed Yassin," in reference to the founder of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, whom Israel assassinated last month.
"We announce the killing of four soldiers and we have the bodies," the speaker said. The footage showed the body of an unidentified man in the sand.
It was not clear when he had been killed or when the tape had been made.
Foreigner, apparently American, held hostage
Separate TV pictures on Saturday showed Iraqi insurgents holding a prisoner, apparently an American, in a car.
The prisoner, who spoke with a southern American accent and was apparently wounded in the arm, spoke to a cameraman from the back seat of a car with a masked gunman next to him, on the main highway on Baghdad’s western edge where fighting took place Friday.
The videotape apparently was shot Friday. The prisoner told the cameraman, from Australia’s ABC television, that he was part of a convoy that was attacked.
When asked by an ABC reporter what happened, the man said: “They attacked our convoy. That’s all I’m going to say.”
The car then drove off down the highway with him still in the back seat, passing a burning tanker truck on the road. The prisoner wore what appeared to be a light flak jacket of the sort worn by private security guards, who are often contracted to protect convoys.
Gunmen attacked a fuel convoy Friday in Abu Ghreib on the main highway outside Baghdad, setting a tanker on fire and killing one U.S. soldier and an Iraqi driver.
Top Shiite leader condemns kidnappings
Insurgents elsewhere in Iraq have kidnapped three Japanese, a Canadian and an Arab from Jerusalem. Those holding the Japanese have threatened to kill them unless Tokyo withdraws its troops from Iraq by Sunday, a demand Japan’s prime minister has refused. A Kuwait-based aide to Iraq’s top Shiite religious leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, denounced the kidnapping of the three Japanese citizens as a “terrorist” act and demanded their immediate release.
“We demand those kidnappers to set them free immediately for the sake of Iraq’s interests. Islam is free of such terrorist acts and the use of violence, especially against women,” Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Mohri said in Friday sermon remarks, carried by newspapers on Saturday. “This ugly picture hurts Islam and Muslims as it gives a bad impression about our Islamic religion.”
A British citizen and two German security officials from their country’s embassy in Baghdad are also missing, though it is not known if they have been kidnapped.
Insurgents claim seizure of 4 Italians, 2 Americans
On Friday, Iraqi insurgents said they had seized four Italians and two Americans on the western outskirts of Baghdad.
A Reuters journalist saw two captive foreigners, said by the insurgents to be Italians, in a mosque in a village in the Abu Ghraib district outside the capital. One was wounded in the shoulder. Both were weeping.
Insurgents told Reuters that they captured the four Italians as they were traveling in a four-wheel-drive vehicle with weapons in it. In Rome, Italy’s Foreign Ministry said all of its registered soldiers and civilians, including aid workers, journalists and government employees, were accounted for.
“On that basis, it's possible to exclude that any of these have been kidnapped,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that it was still investigating the possibility that some Italians were in Iraq whom the ministry was not aware of.
The Americans were seized in a separate attack. Insurgents took journalists to a mosque, surrounded by about 40 fighters with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, where they said all the hostages had been taken.
The two foreigners could be seen from a distance, but the fighters did not allow them to be filmed. U.S. military authorities did not immediately have any information about any of their personnel being seized.
Seven South Korean Christian missionaries were also briefly held and released Thursday.
Reaction in Japan
In Tokyo, protesters rallied on Saturday, urging Japan to pull its troops out of Iraq to save the lives of the three Japanese hostages, as U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney arrived for the start of a three-country Asian tour.
There was no word on the fate or whereabouts of the civilians, and their anguished families voiced growing frustration as the clock ticked down towards a Sunday evening deadline set by the kidnappers.
In Japan around 1,000 protesters demanding the troops come home gathered near Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s office only hours before Cheney arrived. Cheney is expected to urge Koizumi to hold firm on the troop commitment.
In one of several demonstrations, protesters near Koizumi’s office banged drums. Others held signs reading “Save the Three.” “The government’s response is very cold,” said Keiko Sato. “You have to wonder what they think about human life.”
Koizumi, facing his toughest political test, has vowed not to pull the troops out despite appeals from the hostages’ families, but some analysts say mishandling the crisis could bring down his government.
Relatives of the hostages said they were worried by the apparent lack of progress and shortage of available information.
“I assume that there have been advances, but without the release of information we really don’t know what’s going on,” said Takashi Imai, father of hostage Noriaki Imai, an 18-year-old who graduated from high school just last month. “We are very uneasy,” he told a news conference.
Japan was stunned on Thursday when a previously unknown group released a video showing the Japanese hostages, blindfolded and with a gun to their heads.
The three are Imai, who had planned to look into the effects of depleted uranium weapons; female aid worker Nahoko Takato, 34; and freelance reporter Soichiro Koriyama, 32.
The public was sharply divided over the decision to deploy a total of about 1,000 troops to Iraq and nearby countries in Japan’s riskiest military operation since World War Two.
Critics say the deployment violates Japan’s pacifist constitution and resent what they see as pressure from Washington to make the controversial decision. Supporters say it is time for Japan to take a bolder role in global security.
Ichiro Aisawa, a senior Foreign Ministry official, arrived in Jordan on Saturday to coordinate rescue efforts, but domestic media said any such efforts would almost certainly have to rely on the United States since Japan’s military is not allowed to fight overseas under laws allowing their deployment.
The precise deadline set by the kidnappers was not clear, but a Japanese ruling coalition official put it at around 9:00 p.m. (1200 GMT) on Sunday.
U.S. allies voice opinions
During his Asia tour, Vice President Dick Cheney is expected to urge Washington’s allies in the region to stand firm in their commitment to the U.S.-led mission in Iraq.
In other reactions:
- Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Friday that he feared that Australian aid workers in Iraq could be kidnapped, but he said the country would not be blackmailed into pulling its troops out.
- Despite the brief abduction of seven missionaries, South Korea stood by plans to deploy 3,000 troops to Iraq, but it imposed a virtual ban on civilian travel to the country, the foreign minister said, adding that a military survey team would leave Friday for Iraq. The defense minister said he hoped to send the troops to Iraq by June 13.
- Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller said Thursday that he expected more public pressure to pull Polish troops out, but he insisted that his country would not abandon the coalition.
- Italy’s defense minister said Italian troops would stay, rejecting opposition calls to pull out after clashes that left 15 Iraqis dead and a dozen Italians injured.
- Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Thai troops had been ordered to stay inside their camp in Karbala, 60 miles south of Baghdad, until fighting eased.
- Kazakhstan will keep its 30 or so servicemen in Iraq as long as there are no serious casualties, a government source said Friday.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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