- BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- Seven
South Koreans, three Japanese and a Briton were reported Thursday to have
been seized in Iraq and militants threatened to burn the Japanese alive
unless their country withdrew its troops.
-
- Gunmen frequently stage hold-ups on Iraq's lawless roads
but the taking of hostages would mark a sharp escalation of the growing
conflict between U.S.-led forces and Iraqis and foreign militants opposed
to the occupation.
-
- No demands were issued in relation to the South Koreans,
who were members of a church group, or the Briton, identified as a contractor.
The Japanese were reported to be a female aid worker, a researcher and
a freelance cameraman.
-
- Arab television Al Jazeera showed the three Japanese,
kneeling with their eyes bound with white cloth and surrounded by masked
men holding rifles and also sitting on the floor without their bindings
and talking to their captors. The walls of the room were riddled with bullets.
-
- It said they had been taken hostage by a hitherto unknown
Iraqi group called Saraya al-Mujahideen (Mujahideen Brigades).
-
- "We tell you that three of your children have fallen
prisoner in our hands and we give you two options -- withdraw your forces
from our country and go home or we will burn them alive and feed them to
the fighters," the group said.
-
- "You have three days from the date of this tape's
airing," it said in a statement, accusing Japan of betraying Iraqis
by supporting the U.S.-led occupation.
-
- A Japanese government spokesman demanded their immediate
release and said the country had no plans to pull out of Iraq.
-
- Nudged by the United States, Tokyo has sent 550 troops
to Samawa on a non-combat mission to help rebuild Iraq in its riskiest
military deployment since World War II which critics say violates Japan's
pacifist constitution.
-
- Another U.S.-ally, South Korea has 600 military engineers
and medics in Iraq and plans to send 3,000 more for reconstruction.
-
- South Korea's Foreign Ministry said seven South Korean
members of a church group had been taken hostage by armed men.
-
- Kim Sang-mee, another member of the group escaped the
gunmen, told South Korea's MBC TV that several Iraqis armed with guns and
dressed like civilians stopped cars and took away the rest of her group,
which had been on its way to Baghdad from Jordan.
-
- "We told them we're Koreans several times, but they
didn't care," Kim said.
-
- A British civilian was also reported kidnapped, in the
southern Iraqi town of Nassiriya, the scene of heavy fighting between radical
Shi'ite militiamen and Iraqi troops.
-
- A coalition official named the man as Gary Teeley, a
British contractor. He was abducted Tuesday and had not been heard of since.
He said efforts were under way to locate him.
-
- British media said Teeley, 37, was married and resident
in the Middle East and had been working at a U.S. airbase.
-
- A Foreign Office official in London confirmed that Teeley
was missing, but would not say what he was doing in Iraq or comment on
the manner of his disappearance.
-
- Earlier Thursday, Japan had already vowed to make no
hasty decisions about its non-combat troops after explosions near their
camp.
-
- No Japanese soldier has fired a shot in action or been
killed in combat since 1945 and casualties could undermine support for
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government ahead of Upper House elections
in July.
-
- In Tokyo, a foreign ministry official said it was checking
the situation. Top government officials including Chief Cabinet Secretary
Yasuo Fukuda, the top government spokesman, gathered at the prime minister's
office to collect information while Koizumi was at his official residence.
-
- Passports shown on the video carried the woman's name
as Nahoko Takato and the two men as Noriaki Imai and Soichiro Koriyama.
At least one of them had a press identification card.
-
- Japanese public broadcaster NHK said the woman belonged
to a human rights group and had been involved in relief work for children
in Iraq since last year.
-
- Imai had been planning a trip to Iraq to do field work
on the possible effects of depleted uranium weapons, NHK said, while Kiriyama
is a freelance cameraman.
-
- - Additional reporting by Ghaida Ghantous and Firouz
Sedarat in Dubai and Rhee So-eui in Seoul
-
- Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited
without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable
for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance
thereon.
-
- http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/forms/printstory.asp
- ?section=Breaking&storyId=848217&tw=wn_wire_story
|
