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| Monday, 12 July 2004 |
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Iraq militants issue new deadline to kill hostage BAGHDAD, Sunday (Reuters) Militants holding a Filipino hostage denied on Saturday he had been freed and issued a fresh threat to kill him unless Manila showed in 24 hours it would withdraw its troops from Iraq. "The hostage will remain captive and treated as a prisoner under Islam until the last Filipino soldier leaves Iraq by latest July 20...or he will be executed," Al Jazeera quoted a statement from the Islamic Army in Iraq group as saying. "We give the Philippine government an additional 24 hours starting from 11:00 p.m. Iraqi time (1900 GMT) on Saturday to show it is serious about withdrawing its troops." Government officials in Manila had said earlier Angelo de la Cruz was being taken to a Baghdad hotel and could be released within hours, prompting celebrations among family and friends of the 46-year-old truck driver. Philippine officials were not immediately available for comment after the kidnappers' statement, but President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo cancelled a planned news conference at which she had been expected to announce de la Cruz's release. On Wednesday, Al Jazeera broadcast a video tape of a sobbing de la Cruz kneeling in front of three gunmen and said the militants had threatened to behead him if Manila did not pull out its troops within 72 hours. There was no suggestion of any immediate withdrawal, but Manila hinted it would not keep its tiny force of 51 troops working on reconstruction projects in Iraq beyond next month. "We have halted the deployment of all Filipino workers to Iraq. Our humanitarian contingent is already scheduled to return on August 20," Manila's embassy in Baghdad said. Foreign Secretary Delia Domingo Albert told CNN the Filipino force, mainly medical staff, had been scheduled since their deployment last year to leave in August. Death threats also still hung over two Bulgarian hostages seized in Iraq. But Bulgaria said it believed the two men, also truck drivers, were still alive a day after an execution deadline expired and sent diplomats to Baghdad to try to free them. The abductors said they would kill Georgi Lazov, 30, and Ivailo Kepov, 32, late on Friday unless U.S.-led forces freed prisoners in Iraq. "We have unconfirmed information that the Bulgarian hostages are alive," Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy told Bulgarian media. "The situation is very serious. We are making efforts to send the right messages to the captors and persuade them Bulgaria is not a hostile country," Passy said. U.S. President George W. Bush spoke to Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov by telephone, thanking him for committing troops to Iraq and saying Washington would do everything it could to help, said White House spokesman Allen Abney. Al Jazeera had shown a video tape of the two Bulgarians in front of masked captors it identified as members of the Tawhid and Jihad group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Washington's most wanted man in Iraq. Zarqawi, accused by Washington of links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, has already claimed responsibility for the beheadings of an American and a South Korean. Apart from the hostage crisis, Iraq's new interim government is grappling with guerrillas trying to sap its authority and drive out U.S.-led forces. A mortar attack near a Baghdad hotel used by U.S. contractors killed two children on Friday night. U.S. marines killed two Iraqis and wounded six near a taxi stand in the restive town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, on Saturday, but accounts of the shooting were conflicting. Residents said U.S. snipers had fired from a building for no reason, but the U.S. military said the dead were gunmen. An official at the local hospital said residents had brought in two bodies and six wounded, including two children. The U.S. military said marines had clashed with "seven enemy fighters dressed in black", killing two of them. |
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