Hostages to be released soon

2004-08-01 13:31

Kuwait City - A Kuwaiti company that has seven drivers being held hostage in Kuwait has received assurances they will be released within a day, a company spokesperson said on Sunday.

"We are in the final steps of negotiations," Rana Abu-Zaineh, manpower and planning manager of the Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Co, told The Associated Press. "They will release them in several hours or a day."

A company official arrived in Baghdad on Saturday to meet with mediators headed by Sheik Hisham al-Dulaimi, who runs an organization of tribal leaders in Iraq.

The seven drivers from India, Kenya and Egypt have been held 10 days.

The kidnappers, calling themselves "The Holders of the Black Banners", initially said they wanted the company to pull out of Iraq. Later they said the company should pay reparations to the people of the Iraqi city of Fallujah, a hotbed of insurgency, hurt by US attacks. They also wanted all Iraqi prisoners held in Kuwait and by US forces to be released.

The kidnappers have several times extended deadlines set for killing the hostages.

Abu-Zaineh would not elaborate on the negotiations but she said the company will not pay Fallujah reparations.

"This demand in particular, we have nothing to do with it," she told The Associated Press. "Why should we pay political compensation? We are not a government company and we have nothing to do with politics."

She reiterated that her company has no offices or operations in Iraq and only goods there for other firms.

Militants in Iraq have kidnapped more than 70 foreigners in recent months in an effort to push countries out of the US-led coalition that invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam more than a year ago, and to deter others from joining it. They also want to disrupt reconstruction efforts.

- AP