Rebel fighters terrorised and threatened to burn alive three Japanese civilians unless their country agreed to pull its troops out of Iraq, in a video shown to the world.
The rebels armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, held knives to the throats of the Japanese, who screamed in terror on the video, released yesterday, and said they would burn them in three days.
The kidnappers shouted: “Allahu akbar” – God is great.
But Japan’s government said it has no plans to pull troops out of Iraq in response to the threat, which came amid a series of other kidnappings targeting civilians.
Two Arabs from Israel, a Canadian aid worker and seven South Korean Christian missionaries also were detained yesterday. The South Koreans were later released.
The events suggested a new tactic by rebels to pressure the governments of Washington’s allies in Iraq, and posed dire implications for United Nations workers, journalists, religious groups, security personnel and other civilians.
Foreigners have been detained by gunmen for brief periods in the past – usually in robberies – and Iraqi citizens have been kidnapped and held for ransom by criminals. But this is the first time foreigners have been snatched for political reasons, and the first such dramatic video ultimatum.
The Arabic TV station Al-Jazeera, broadcasting to Iraq and the rest of the Arab world, aired portions of the video of the Japanese hostages released by a previously unknown group calling itself the “Mujahideen Squadrons”. It showed two men and one woman surrounded by gunmen wearing black, and close-ups of the captives’ passports.
Al-Jazeera editors said the three were taken hostage in southern Iraq, where black-clad Shiite militiamen have been engaged in an uprising this week. The exact date of their capture was not known.
Japanese troops are based outside the southern Iraqi city of Samawah.
Associated Press Television News obtained a copy of the full video, in which four masked men point knives and swords at the captives as they lie on the floor of a room with concrete walls.
At one point, a gunman holds a knife to the throat of one of the men, whose blindfold has been removed; his eyes widen in panic and he struggles to try to get free. The woman screams and weeps.
On Al-Jazeera, an announcer read a statement he said came with the video declaring a three-day ultimatum for Japan to announce its withdrawal of troops.
“Three of your sons have fallen into our hands,” the announcer read. “We offer you two choices: either pull out your forces, or we will burn them alive. We give you three days starting the day this tape is broadcast.”
Japan’s NHK television identified the captives as two aid workers and a journalist. The passports shown in the video belong to Noriaki Imai, born 1985; Soichiro Koriyama, 32; and Nahoko Takato, 34. The gunmen also displayed a press card for Koriyama from the weekly newspaper Asahi.
The Canadian hostage, Fadhi Ihsan Fadel, was seized early on Wednesday, the Canadian Foreign Affairs Ministry said. Fadel, the first Canadian taken captive in Iraq, works for the New York-based aid agency International Rescue Committee.
The South Korean missionaries were stopped by armed men at a checkpoint on a highway from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad. The eight Koreans were travelling in two cars to attend the opening of a missionary school near the northern city of Mosul, Seoul officials said.
The gunmen dragged seven of the missionaries from the vehicles and seized their passports. The eighth told South Korean news media that she escaped when the Iraqi driver of her car drove off before she could get out.
Freed after about nine hours, one of the missionaries, a middle-aged man, told APTN in Baghdad that the captors, who wore masks, treated them well.
“First, I felt insecure, but later they made us feel comfortable and gave us food and drinks,” the man said. “I think at first they thought we were linked to US soldiers.”
News of the kidnappings of the two Arabs came in video footage from Iranian television, rebroadcast on Israeli television. It shows images of the men’s documents, including an Israeli driver’s licence, a health insurance card and a supermarket card. A US driver’s licence from the state of Georgia also was displayed.
The men identify themselves as Nabil Razouk, 30, and Ahmed Yassin Tikati, 33.
An uncle of Razouk told AP his nephew had an Israeli passport and worked for the US Agency for International Development. Razouk is a Christian and is married to a Czech woman, Anton Razouk said.
He pleaded for his nephew’s safety in an APTN interview. ”I want to tell the Iraqis he is not a spy, not for America and not for Israel,” the uncle said. “He is an Arab, a member of the Arab nation, a Palestinian like me living in Jerusalem under Israeli occupation.”
In New York, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the release of the three Japanese “and all other innocent civilians who may have been abducted for political ends in the conflict”, his spokesman said.
Japan has about 530 ground troops in Samawah, part of a total planned deployment of 1,100 soldiers for a mission to purify water and carry out other reconstruction tasks.
About 460 South Korean medics and military engineers have been in Nasiriyah for almost a year. They are to return home after South Korea’s planned deployment of 3,600 more troops to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq later this year.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2757532
The rebels armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, held knives to the throats of the Japanese, who screamed in terror on the video, released yesterday, and said they would burn them in three days.
The kidnappers shouted: “Allahu akbar” – God is great.
But Japan’s government said it has no plans to pull troops out of Iraq in response to the threat, which came amid a series of other kidnappings targeting civilians.
Two Arabs from Israel, a Canadian aid worker and seven South Korean Christian missionaries also were detained yesterday. The South Koreans were later released.
The events suggested a new tactic by rebels to pressure the governments of Washington’s allies in Iraq, and posed dire implications for United Nations workers, journalists, religious groups, security personnel and other civilians.
Foreigners have been detained by gunmen for brief periods in the past – usually in robberies – and Iraqi citizens have been kidnapped and held for ransom by criminals. But this is the first time foreigners have been snatched for political reasons, and the first such dramatic video ultimatum.
The Arabic TV station Al-Jazeera, broadcasting to Iraq and the rest of the Arab world, aired portions of the video of the Japanese hostages released by a previously unknown group calling itself the “Mujahideen Squadrons”. It showed two men and one woman surrounded by gunmen wearing black, and close-ups of the captives’ passports.
Al-Jazeera editors said the three were taken hostage in southern Iraq, where black-clad Shiite militiamen have been engaged in an uprising this week. The exact date of their capture was not known.
Japanese troops are based outside the southern Iraqi city of Samawah.
Associated Press Television News obtained a copy of the full video, in which four masked men point knives and swords at the captives as they lie on the floor of a room with concrete walls.
At one point, a gunman holds a knife to the throat of one of the men, whose blindfold has been removed; his eyes widen in panic and he struggles to try to get free. The woman screams and weeps.
On Al-Jazeera, an announcer read a statement he said came with the video declaring a three-day ultimatum for Japan to announce its withdrawal of troops.
“Three of your sons have fallen into our hands,” the announcer read. “We offer you two choices: either pull out your forces, or we will burn them alive. We give you three days starting the day this tape is broadcast.”
Japan’s NHK television identified the captives as two aid workers and a journalist. The passports shown in the video belong to Noriaki Imai, born 1985; Soichiro Koriyama, 32; and Nahoko Takato, 34. The gunmen also displayed a press card for Koriyama from the weekly newspaper Asahi.
The Canadian hostage, Fadhi Ihsan Fadel, was seized early on Wednesday, the Canadian Foreign Affairs Ministry said. Fadel, the first Canadian taken captive in Iraq, works for the New York-based aid agency International Rescue Committee.
The South Korean missionaries were stopped by armed men at a checkpoint on a highway from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad. The eight Koreans were travelling in two cars to attend the opening of a missionary school near the northern city of Mosul, Seoul officials said.
The gunmen dragged seven of the missionaries from the vehicles and seized their passports. The eighth told South Korean news media that she escaped when the Iraqi driver of her car drove off before she could get out.
Freed after about nine hours, one of the missionaries, a middle-aged man, told APTN in Baghdad that the captors, who wore masks, treated them well.
“First, I felt insecure, but later they made us feel comfortable and gave us food and drinks,” the man said. “I think at first they thought we were linked to US soldiers.”
News of the kidnappings of the two Arabs came in video footage from Iranian television, rebroadcast on Israeli television. It shows images of the men’s documents, including an Israeli driver’s licence, a health insurance card and a supermarket card. A US driver’s licence from the state of Georgia also was displayed.
The men identify themselves as Nabil Razouk, 30, and Ahmed Yassin Tikati, 33.
An uncle of Razouk told AP his nephew had an Israeli passport and worked for the US Agency for International Development. Razouk is a Christian and is married to a Czech woman, Anton Razouk said.
He pleaded for his nephew’s safety in an APTN interview. ”I want to tell the Iraqis he is not a spy, not for America and not for Israel,” the uncle said. “He is an Arab, a member of the Arab nation, a Palestinian like me living in Jerusalem under Israeli occupation.”
In New York, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the release of the three Japanese “and all other innocent civilians who may have been abducted for political ends in the conflict”, his spokesman said.
Japan has about 530 ground troops in Samawah, part of a total planned deployment of 1,100 soldiers for a mission to purify water and carry out other reconstruction tasks.
About 460 South Korean medics and military engineers have been in Nasiriyah for almost a year. They are to return home after South Korea’s planned deployment of 3,600 more troops to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq later this year.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2757532
