Iraqis seize five more hostages
More than 40 hostages from 12 nations are being held captive in Iraq, the US revealed today as four missing Italian security guards and a French journalist added to the total.
Dan Senor, the spokesman for the US-led administration, said in Baghdad that it would not negotiate with “terrorists or kidnappers” to gain the hostages’ release.
Arab satellite TV station al-Jazeera broadcast video footage of the four Italians who were working for a US company in Iraq when they disappeared in the volatile town of Fallujah.
The video showed the four men sitting on the floor holding their passports up for the camera. They were surrounded by gunmen wearing Arab headscarves.
Al-Jazeera said the four were kidnapped by the Green Brigade of the Prophet, one of the Mujahideen Brigades.
The kidnappers demanded that the Italian government and specifically Premier Silvio Berlusconi issue an apology for Italy’s insult to Islam and Muslims, Al-Jazeera said.
They also want Italy, which has some 3,000 troops in Iraq, to withdraw its forces from the country according to a certain timetable.
The kidnappers said that when responding to their terms, the Italians will be notified of the party to which they should negotiate to release the hostages, Al-Jazeera reported.
Berlusconi ruled out a pullout of the troops.
“The government will do all it can to achieve as soon as possible the release of the four Italian citizens held in Iraq,” he said.
“The peace mission of the Italian soldiers in Iraq, in line with the international commitments that have been taken on, is absolutely not in question,” the premier added.
A French photographer was taken hostage today, said the Foreign Ministry in Paris.
The photographer works for Capa Television based in Paris and the kidnapping came just hours after France urged its citizens to leave Iraq.
Nine Americans are also missing, including one whose abductors have threatened to kill him.
Earlier today, eight employees of a Russian energy company were released unharmed after being seized by masked gunmen who broke into their house in Baghdad. They spent less than a day in captivity, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The abduction of the five Ukrainians and three Russians at their residence appeared to be a new tactic by kidnappers. All the past seizures have come on the roads, with civilians whisked away after their vehicles come under attack.
Two American soldiers and seven employees of a US contractor were still missing today after their convoy was ambushed Friday west of Baghdad.
Only one, Thomas Hamill, a 43-year-old truck driver, is known to have been abducted. His captors have threatened to kill and mutilate him unless US troops ended their assault on the city of Fallujah. The deadline has passed with no word on his fate.
In Tokyo, optimism has faded that three Japanese civilians abducted last week would be released quickly after a top government spokesman suggested authorities were no longer confident of their safety.
A US military helicopter was forced into making an emergency landing near Fallujah today after being hit by ground fire.
Three crew members were injured and troops that rescued the crew were attacked by mortars and gunmen, killing one Marine, the military said. Insurgents said they downed the craft with a rocket-propelled grenade.
A marine was killed by mortar fire, said Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt. Seven Marines were wounded in the area.
Another team went in afterward and blew up the craft to prevent it from being looted.
Around a dozen masked gunmen were near the wreckage, at least one carrying RPG launchers.
“The helicopter was passing overhead, and we happened to be hiding here. We fired an RPG at it and it fell,” said a masked gunman, one of around a dozen insurgents near the crash site, one of them with an RPG launcher.
While Fallujah has been relatively calm for four days, the area between the besieged city and Baghdad has seen heavy clashes between gunmen and US forces. Insurgents shot down another helicopter on Sunday in nearby Abu Ghraib, killing its two crew members.
US troops briefly arrested a representative of radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in a Baghdad hotel today.
Hazem al-Aaraji – who is also an outspoken anti-US cleric – was detained in the conference hall of the Sheraton Hotel during a meeting of tribal leaders. His bodyguards tried to prevent the arrest, but were pushed aside by about six soldiers.
Hours later, he was set free.
Shortly after his release the cleric said he was held for five hours at the Baghdad International Airport.
“Afterward an officer came to me and said ’we apologise,”’ said al-Aaraji adding that they brought him back to the Sheraton Hotel.
General Kimmitt, deputy chief of operations in Iraq, said al-Aaraji was questioned and later ”determined to have no direct involvement in violent acts in Iraq and is not viewed as an imminent threat to security,”
US commanders have vowed to kill or capture al-Sadr and about 2,500 troops have deployed to the holy city of Najaf where he is believed to be holed up with several of his militiamen.
| Related Stories: |
|
