Iraqi insurgents threaten burn hostages alive
Associated Press
Apr. 8, 2004 09:30 AM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi insurgents kidnapped eight South Koreans, three Japanese and two Arab Israelis, and captors armed with automatic rifles and swords threatened in a video released Thursday to burn the Japanese alive if Tokyo does not withdraw from the U.S.-led coalition within three days.
Two South Korean TV stations reported from Iraq early Friday that the South Koreans - Christian missionaires - had been released, but the Foreign Ministry in Seoul could not confirm that.
In Tokyo, Japan's government said it has no plans to pull out of Iraq because of the kidnapping. It was the first such ultimatum involving foreign civilians taken hostage in Iraq, suggesting a new tactic by militants to pressure governments allied with Washington.
The separate seizures of the Japanese, Koreans and Arabs also could have wider implications for U.N. workers, journalists, as well as Christian missionaries, security personnel and those doing business with the Iraqi government. One of the Arab Israelis works for a U.S. aid organization.
The Arabic TV station Al-Jazeera, broadcasting to Iraq and the rest of the Arab world, aired portions of the video released by a previously unknown group calling itself the "Mujahedeen Squadrons." It showed two Japanese men and one woman blindfolded and surrounded by gunmen dressed in black, who display 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. Japanese troops are based outside the southern Iraqi city of Samawah.
Associated Press Television News obtained a copy of the full video, which also shows four masked men pointing knives and swords at the captives as they lay 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; his eyes widen in panic and he struggles to try to get free. The woman weeps and her lips move as if speaking. There was no audio to the footage.
The eight South Koreans, believed to be evangelists from the Christian Council of Korea who set out for Iraq on April 5, were detained by unidentified armed men, a Foreign Ministry official told AP in Seoul.
One managed to escape; the seven others were released, according to the SBS and YTN TV news stations. SBS said its correspondent in Iraq met the released missionaries, but other details were still unclear.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry identified seven released ministers as: Huh Young, Lee Myong-suk, Hong Gwang-cheon, Cho Jong-hun, Byeon Kyung-ja, Kim Pil-ja and Lim Young-sup.
The one who escaped, Kim Sang-mee, told Korean news media her group was traveling in two cars on a highway from Amman, Jordan, when it was stopped 155 miles west of the Iraq capital. "Around one and half hours before our arrival in Baghdad, we were seized by strangers," she said.
She said armed men took them captive after checking their passports, suggesting the seizure might be connected to South Korea's plans to send 3,600 troops to Iraq.
Meanwhile, Israeli media reported that two Arab residents of Jerusalem were also kidnapped.
Footage from Iranian television, rebroadcast on Israeli television, showed photographs of the men's documents, which included an Israeli driver's license, a local health insurance card and a supermarket card. A U.S. driver's license from the state of Georgia also was displayed.
In the footage, the men identified 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 U.S. Agency for International Development. Razouk is a Christian who lives in east Jerusalem and is married to a Czech woman, Anton Razouk said.
"I am very worried. I pray for his safety," the uncle said.
He made an appeal for his nephew in an APTN interview. "I want to tell the Iraqis he is not a spy, not for America and not for Israel," he said. "He is an Arab, a member of the Arab nation, a Palestinian like me living in Jerusalem under Israeli occupation."
On Al-Jazeera, an announcer read a statement he said came with the video of the Japanese in which the kidnappers issue a three-day ultimatum for Japan to announce it will withdraw troops from southern Iraq.
"Three of your sons have fallen into our hands," the Al-Jazeera 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; Nahoko Takato, 34. The gunmen also displayed a press card for Koriyama from the weekly newspaper Asahi.
Japan has about 530 ground troops based in Samawah, part of a total planned deployment of 1,100 soldiers for a mission in Iraq to purify water and carry out other reconstruction tasks. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has been one of the strongest backers of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
About 460 South Korean medics and military engineers have been in Nasiriyah for almost a year. They are to come home after South Korea's planned deployment of up to 3,600 troops to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq later this year.
