Hostages face death in Iraq
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-20 09:59

Several insurgent groups set deadlines for killing more than a score of hostages in Iraq -- from a trio of American and British workers to an entire squad of 18 Iraqi soldiers -- unless their various demands are met.

One militant group threatened to kill two Americans and a Briton on Monday unless women prisoners were freed, and another group threatened to kill 10 workers from a U.S.-Turkish firm if their company failed to leave the country within three days.

The wave of hostage-taking spread to Iraq's security forces, with an Islamist group saying it would kill 18 soldiers unless authorities free an aide to Shi'ite rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr within 48 hours, Arab television Al Jazeera said on Sunday.

It showed a video of masked gunmen and a group of uniformed men it said were 18 members of the fledgling National Guard, which has come under fierce attack from insurgents who see them as collaborators with the U.S.-led occupying forces.

The kidnappers were demanding the release of Sadr aide Hazem al-Araji, also a Shi'ite Muslim cleric. Sadr supporters in Baghdad said U.S. forces seized Araji overnight in the capital.

Much of the kidnapping of foreigners seen in the past few months has been in the minority Sunni Muslim heartlands, where U.S. and Iraqi officials say foreign Islamists are also active.

Many of dozens of hostages have been freed over the months, some have died. An Islamist group said it had beheaded three non-Arab Kurds who were members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which cooperates with Iraq's U.S.-backed government.

An Internet video from the Army of Ansar al-Sunna appeared to show the heads of three young men being severed and placed on their bodies.

Lawlessness in the last two weeks has claimed the lives of hundreds of people and raised doubts that elections scheduled for January will go ahead.

Election vow

But Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on Sunday the elections will be held in January despite the surge in violence.

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair (R) meets Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi in Downing Street, London September 19, 2004. Allawi insisted on Sunday that elections in Iraq will go ahead in January as planned. [Reuters]

"We definitely are going to stick to the timetable of elections in January next year," Allawi told a news conference after talks in London with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The abduction of Westerners has forced many foreign firms to scale back their operations or pull out, hindering efforts to rebuild the country after the ousting of Saddam Hussein.

Blair and Allawi said they were working to resolve the latest kidnappings.

The British Foreign Office appealed on Al Arabiya television for any information from Iraqis on Briton Kenneth Bigley.

"We implore anyone with information which may help us free Kenneth to contact us and we will not reveal their identity," a British Foreign Office official said in Arabic.

Bigley's brother, Phillip, appealed to the kidnappers on Al Arabiya, saying: "Ken is a loving and caring father ... and he is looking forward to becoming a grandfather for the first time in February."

He added: "At the end of the day, we just want him home, safe and well, especially for my mother."

Death threat

The two Americans and Bigley, seized from their home in Baghdad on Thursday, work for an engineering company.

Internet video footage showed the hostages and a gunman who said the Tawhid and Jihad group led by Jordanian suspected al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would kill them unless Iraqi women prisoners were freed from Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr jails.

The deadline expires on Monday morning, measured from the time the footage first appeared.

The U.S. military said no women were held at either prison.

Only two women are publicly acknowledged to be in U.S. custody in Iraq. Dubbed "Dr Germ" and "Mrs Anthrax" by U.S. forces, they have been accused of working on weapons programs for toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The women are held in a camp for high-ranking detainees.

Washington has identified ally Zarqawi as its top target in Iraq, putting a $25 million bounty on his head.

He and his group have claimed responsibility for many of the bloodiest attacks. In May, the group released video footage of the beheading of U.S. civilian hostage Nicholas Berg.

There was no firm word on the fate of two French journalists and two Italian women aid workers being held. An unconfirmed report on Saturday said the Frenchmen were no longer captives but had agreed to spend some time with the group that seized them to report on its activities.

In Rome, an Italian aid group on Sunday sent a video montage of emotive images to Arab television of the two Italians and two Iraqi colleagues in the hope of winning their release.

"I love Iraq," said hostage Simona Torretta.

Bombing campaign

A car bomb on Sunday near the rebel stronghold of Samarra north of Baghdad killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded three U.S. troops, the U.S. military said.

A day earlier, a suicide car bomber killed at least 23 people queuing up for jobs with the Iraqi National Guard in the northern city of Kirkuk, hospital officials said.

Over the weekend in Baghdad, a car bomb killed two U.S. soldiers as they went to the scene of an earlier suspected suicide car bomb attack that had wounded three soldiers.

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