- BAGHDAD -- An important supply
chain for the US forces in Iraq was disrupted yesterday when Turkish lorry
owners announced that they were suspending deliveries across the border
in an attempt to secure the release of two drivers being held hostage.
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- The decision to stop the 200 to 300 daily journeys was
announced after the release of a videotape on an Islamist website that
showed the murder of a Turkish worker in Iraq.
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- The Turkish supply route is one of three relied upon
by the US military and is regarded as more secure for the convoys than
the routes through Jordan and Kuwait.
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- Of the 2,000 lorries that cross daily from the north,
about a tenth carry vital supplies such as petrol and jet fuel to American
forces.
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- But in the past few months several Turkish drivers have
been attacked, killed or taken hostage.
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- Men claiming to be from a militant group led by Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi said on Saturday that they had captured two Turkish lorry drivers,
and demanded that the men's employers leave Iraq.
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- In a tape shown on the Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera,
masked men threatened to behead the two drivers unless their Turkish employers
complied with the kidnappers' demands.
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- Militants loyal to al-Zarqawi have also claimed responsibility
for a number of bloody attacks and beheadings of foreign hostages, including
the US businessman Nicholas Berg, a South Korean, Kim Sun-il, and a Bulgarian
truck driver, Georgi Lazov.
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- A statement by the International Transporters' Association
in Instanbul said: "Within the framework of current developments,
[we] decided to stop the transport of cargo which belong to the American
troops in Iraq as of Monday."
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- The association said trucks carrying supplies that were
not destined to the US forces would not be affected.
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- In the video broadcast yesterday, Murat Yuce was shot
in the head by one of three masked men after a statement was read in Turkish.
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- It said: "I have a word of advice for any Turk who
wants to come to Iraq to work. You don't have to hold a gun to be aiding
the occupying United States ... Turkish companies should withdraw from
Iraq."
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- In Ankara, the Bilintur company, which provides a laundry
service for a Jordanian company in Iraq, said Mr Yuce was one of two employees
missing in Iraq for three or four days. Another Turkish driver, Birdal
Sancar, was killed last week near the border with Syria, the Anatolia news
agency reported yesterday.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1274916,00.html
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