- BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) --
A militant Iraqi group said it had killed 12 Nepali hostages and showed
pictures of one being beheaded and others being gunned down in the worst
violence against captives since a wave of kidnappings erupted in April.
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- The announcement of the killings, made in a statement
posted on an Islamist Web site Tuesday, came as France intensified its
efforts to save two French reporters held hostage in Iraq by a separate
militant Islamic group.
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- The Nepalis were kidnapped earlier this month when they
entered Iraq to work as cooks and cleaners for a Jordanian firm. The killing
of men from a tiny country that had nothing to do with the invasion or
occupation of Iraq will send shockwaves through foreign companies doing
business here.
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- "We have carried out the sentence of God against
12 Nepalis who came from their country to fight the Muslims and to serve
the Jews and the Christians ... believing in Buddha as their God,"
said the statement by the military committee of the Army of Ansar al-Sunna.
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- The group posted a series of photographs showing the
killing as well as a video.
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- The recording showed two masked men, one in camouflage,
holding down a hostage. One of the men then used a knife to behead the
hostage and then hold his head aloft.
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- The video then showed a group of hostages lying face
down and being shot by a man using an automatic rifle. It then showed bodies
splattered with blood and bullet wounds.
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- NEW SCARE TACTICS
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- Ansar al-Sunna, one of several militant groups to emerge
following the ouster of Saddam Hussein, said it had kidnapped the Nepalis
because they were cooperating with U.S. troops.
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- Scores of nationals from more than two dozen countries
have been kidnapped since April, when guerrillas embarked on new tactics
to force foreign troops and firms to leave Iraq.
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- The tactic has scared away some foreign companies, disrupted
supplies to U.S. troops and discouraged investment in a cash-starved economy.
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- Besides the Nepalis, a dozen foreign hostages have been
killed, some by beheading. Around 20 hostages are still being held, many
of them truck drivers from poor countries seeking good money by plying
Iraq's dangerous highways.
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- France mounted a major diplomatic effort to save two
French reporters as a Tuesday night deadline neared for Paris to scrap
a ban on Muslim headscarves in schools.
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- President Jacques Chirac led the effort and envoys explored
other ways to appeal to militants holding Georges Malbrunot and Christian
Chesnot, shown on Arab television Monday fearing for their lives.
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- "I am renewing my solemn call for their release,"
said Chirac, in Sochi, Russia, to meet with anti-Iraq war allies Russian
President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. "Everything
will be done to secure their release."
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- Foreign Minister Michel Barnier was in Jordan after visiting
Egypt Monday.
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- 24 HOURS MORE FOR FRANCE
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- Islamic militants Hamas joined a chorus of groups including
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and aides to anti-U.S. Iraqi cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr urging freedom for the journalists.
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- France opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
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- The kidnappers Monday night gave France a further 24
hours to repeal its ban on headscarves in schools, which is part of a broader
law aimed at anti-Semitism that bars Jewish skullcaps and large Christian
crosses.
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- The Islamic Army in Iraq, a little known group that kidnapped
the two journalists, did not specify the fate of the two men if there was
no repeal, but the group claimed responsibility for the death of an Italian
journalist last week.
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- In a television tape, Chesnot and Malbrunot, appearing
calm, pleaded for a repeal of the headscarf ban.
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- Chesnot, 37, works for Radio France Internationale. Malbrunot,
41, writes for Le Figaro and Ouest France.
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- - Additional reporting by Miral Fahmy in Dubai, Khaled
Yacoub Oweis in Baghdad, Jon Boyle and Kerstin Gehmlich in Paris and Suleiman
al-Khalidi in Amman
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