Iraq: 3 Journalists kidnapped
2005-04-23 08:41
Beth Potter
Baghdad - Captors threatened to kill three Romanian journalists unless Bucharest pledged withdrawal of its troops from Iraq within four days as a car bomb killed nine people outside a Baghdad mosque packed with Shiite worshippers.
The ultimatum to the Romanian government came in a videotape sent to the Qatar-based Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera.
The footage showed the three hostages - Marie-Jeanne Ion and Sorin Miscoci of Prima TV and Eduard Ohanesian of Romania Libera - appealing to their government to announce the withdrawal of all 800 Romanian troops within four days "otherwise they will execute us."
Romanian President Traian Basescu cut short a visit to the Moldovan capital Chisinau on the news.
The trio were kidnapped March 28 in the latest of a string of abductions of foreign hostages in Iraq.
About 26 people were wounded by the mosque blast during the main weekly Muslim prayers, in what appeared to be the latest in a string of sectarian attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents against Iraq's Shiite majority community.
"Six of those hurt are in a serious condition," said a staffer at the capital's Kindi hospital where many of the casualties were treated.
An interior ministry official said the attack might have been a suicide operation.
"Some witnesses said they saw a bomber in the car, a white BMW, but we are checking these reports," he said.
Shiite leaders swiftly condemned the bombing.
Sheikh Sadreddin al-Kubbanji warned the faithful at prayers in the Shiite holy city of Najaf that they faced "calculated terrorist acts aimed at dividing Shiites and Sunnis."
As the US military launched an investigation into the crash of a civilian helicopter on Thursday in which 11 foreigners, including six American security guards, were killed, video footage was posted on the internet purporting to show the execution of a lone survivor.
The Islamic Army in Iraq said it downed the Bulgarian chopper and showed what it said was the blazing wreckage of the aircraft and the bodies of the victims.
In further violence, gunmen attempted to assassinate an adviser to the interior ministry, ministry sources said.
Sami Ambaki escaped unscathed, but two companions, including retired police general, Tarek Abed Lefta, were wounded.
In the main northern city of Mosul, a prison director was shot dead, while in Yusufiyah, just south of the capital, two Iraqi soldiers were killed and four wounded by a roadside bomb, security officials said.
The new violence came amid a fresh setback to efforts to form a new government nearly 12 weeks after landmark elections. - AFP
- SAPA