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| Monday, 2 August 2004 |
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Iraqi militants vow to behead new hostages in 48 hours BAGHDAD, Sunday (Reuters) Militants purportedly led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said they had kidnapped two truck drivers in Iraq and would behead them in 48 hours unless their Turkish company quit the country. The kidnapping was the latest in a growing wave of hostage-taking that has hit Iraq since April as guerrillas wage a campaign to undermine U.S.-led forces and Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's interim government. Al Jazeera screened a video tape showing the two drivers in front of a group of masked gunmen and said the militants had vowed to behead the hostages unless their firm stopped supplying the U.S. military in Iraq and quit the country completely. A black banner in the background bore the name of the Tawhid and Jihad group led by Jordanian-born Zarqawi, accused by Washington of links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda. Al Jazeera named the two hostages as Abdulrahman Damir and Saeed Anwar, but did not give their nationalities. In a separate hostage standoff, an Iraqi mediator said negotiations to try to free seven truck drivers working for a Kuwaiti company -- three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian --- had been positive but had yet to reach a final deal. Sheikh Hisham al-Dulaymi, head of a major Iraqi tribal group, said talks with the Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company would resume on Sunday. "So far the outcome is positive. We have agreed on many issues, but we still need time," Dulaymi said, adding he expected a deal could be reached on Sunday. He said he was asking for patience from the kidnappers, the Black Banners brigade of the Islamic Secret Army. A source at the talks, who declined to be identified, said earlier the Kuwaiti firm had agreed to a demand of the kidnappers to cease work in Iraq. But the firm told Dulaymi another demand -- the release of Iraqi prisoners in Kuwait -- was impossible for a private company to achieve. In Falluja, a doctor at the city's general hospital said ten Iraqis were killed and 40 were wounded in clashes between guerrillas and U.S. forces. Mohamed Dulaimi said most of the dead and injured came from a single family whose house was hit by U.S. forces during fighting in the east of the city. |
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