Terror group threatens to kill Turkish drivers
Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s terrorist group says it has kidnapped two Turkish truck drivers and will kill them in 48 hours if their company does not stop working in Iraq, according to a new videotape broadcast today on Al-Jazeera TV.
The videotape was released by al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid and Jihad movement and showed three armed, masked men wearing black standing behind two seated men holding various forms of identification, including what were apparently Turkish passports.
Al-Jazeera’s newsreader identified the men as two Turkish truck drivers working for a Turkish company that delivers goods to US forces in Iraq.
The group said that they had given the men’s company 48 hours to stop its activities in Iraq and cease providing US forces with supplies or they would behead them both, according to the newsreader.
It was not immediately clear when the men were kidnapped. The names of the men and their company were read out during the videotape, but their correct spellings were unclear.
Al-Zarqawi’s group has already claimed responsibility for a number of bloody attacks and beheadings of foreigners, including US businessman Nicholas Berg, South Korean translator Kim Sun-il and Bulgarian truck driver Georgi Lazov.
Earlier today, a media report said a Turkish driver abducted in Iraq earlier this month had been freed after promising his captors that he would not return to the country.
Mehmet Dayar, who was abducted on July 17 after a convoy of trucks came under attack in the northern city of Mosul, was released following 12 days of captivity, private CNN-Turk television said.
The driver has returned to his hometown of Cizre, in Sirnak province, which borders Iraq, the station said.
Dayar was part of a convoy that was transporting fuel to US troops. Another Turkish driver, Abdulcelil Bayik, was killed in the attack.
His captors freed him after he promised never to return to Iraq, the report said.
Several Turkish drivers have been killed or taken hostage amid the violence in Iraq.
