Captors threaten to kill 3 Japanese hostages
BAGHDAD -- Armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, kidnappers shouted "Allahu akbar" -- God is great -- and held knives to the throats of Japanese hostages, who screamed and whimpered in terror.
In a dramatic video released yesterday, insurgents revealed they had kidnapped the three Japanese and threatened to burn them alive in three days unless Japan agrees to withdraw its troops from Iraq.
Japan's government condemned the action but 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.
"The people of Iraq don't want Japan to leave. There's no reason for them to go," said Tetsuzo Fuyushiba, secretary general of the Komeito party, which is a member of the ruling coalition.
Two Arab residents of east Jerusalem -- one an Israeli citizen working for a US aid group -- and seven South Korean Christian missionaries were detained yesterday, though the Koreans were released.
The events suggested a new tactic by insurgents to pressure the governments of Washington's allies in Iraq, and posed dire implications for UN 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 was 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 "Mujahedeen 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 Shi'ite 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 video, in which four masked men point knives and swords at the blindfolded 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, 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.
Japan's NHK television identified the captives as two aid workers and a journalist. The South Korean missionaries were stopped by armed men at a checkpoint on a highway from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad. The eight Koreans were traveling 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 said 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.
