- BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- Iraqi
militants said Thursday they had killed three Turkish captives, as France
pressed on with diplomatic efforts to win the release of two French journalists
held hostage by another guerrilla group
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- The Arabic Al Jazeera satellite station said the Tawhid
and Jihad group had claimed responsibility for killing the Turks.
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- Tawhid and Jihad is the group led by Jordanian al Qaeda
ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Washington's most wanted man in Iraq with a
$25 million price on his head.
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- The U.S. military said it had launched an air strike
late on Wednesday on two buildings in the restive city of Falluja being
used as safe houses by Zarqawi's loyalists, and had earlier observed the
men killing a captive and burying his body.
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- "Surrounded by fields, the two targeted buildings
served as safe houses and meeting locations for known Zarqawi associates,"
a U.S. military statement said.
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- "The Zarqawi associates were observed removing a
man from the trunk of a car, executing him, then burying his body."
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- Doctors in Falluja said at least 17 people were killed
in the air strike, including three children and one woman.
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- U.S. forces pulled out of Falluja in early May after
weeks of fighting that killed hundreds of Iraqis and sparked nationwide
outrage. Security was handed over to an Iraqi force, but the city is largely
in the control of insurgents and is regarded as a haven for foreign militants.
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- The U.S. military has launched several air strikes on
suspected Zarqawi safe houses in Falluja in recent months.
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- Iraqi Vice President Ibrahim Jaafari, who has been critical
of some U.S.-led military operations, said air strikes were not the best
tactic for pacifying Falluja and efforts should focus instead on isolating
insurgents and cutting their supply routes.
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- "Blind bombing does not distinguish the terrorist
from the non-terrorist," he told Reuters in an interview shortly before
the latest air strike Wednesday night.
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- HOSTAGE CRISIS
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- The announcement of the killing of the three Turks came
after police said they had found three bodies by a road north of Baghdad.
They said identification cards showed two of the dead were Turks. The third
was also thought to be Turkish.
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- "They were shot in the chest. An elderly villager
found their bodies," police Lt. Col. Farhan Mohammad said.
-
- Scores of hostages from dozens of countries have been
seized in the past five months. Most have been freed but more than 20 have
been killed by their captors.
-
- Earlier this week, a guerrilla group said it had slaughtered
12 Nepali captives in the worst mass killing of hostages since the wave
of kidnappings began in April.
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- Wednesday, seven truck drivers -- three Indians, three
Kenyans and an Egyptian -- were freed after being held for nearly six weeks.
The Kuwaiti company that employs them said it had paid a ransom of more
than $500,000.
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- The captors of the two French journalists, Georges Malbrunot
and Christian Chesnot, demanded that France rescind a new law banning conspicuous
religious symbols including Muslim headscarves from state schools.
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- The French government refused, and the kidnappers' deadline
passed without word on the fate of the hostages.
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- The new school year began in France Thursday, with few
pupils defying the headscarf ban.
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- The government hopes diplomacy will save the hostages.
Foreign Minister Michel Barnier is in Amman as part of a Middle East mission
that has rallied support from Arab leaders.
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- A French Muslim delegation arrived in Iraq from Amman
hoping to contact the kidnappers. French media said General Philippe Rondot,
a Middle East specialist, and a team of agents were already in Iraq trying
to make contact with the hostage-takers.
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- France has been deeply shocked by the seizure of two
of its nationals because it objected to pre-war sanctions against Iraq,
has no troops there and its relations with Arab countries were boosted
by its opposition to the U.S.-led invasion.
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