Turkish hostages at peril
2004-06-27 11:52
Baghdad - Guerrillas loyal to an al-Qaeda-linked terror suspect threatened to behead three Turkish hostages unless Turks protest US policies in Iraq, fanning tensions even US President George W Bush visited Turkey on Sunday ahead of a Nato summit.
The kidnappers demanded the Turks hold demonstrations protesting the visit by the "criminal" Bush and that Turkish companies stop working in Iraq - or else the hostages would be killed.
Amid violence shaking the country ahead of the US-led coalition's handover of power this week, explosions rocked the centre of the predominantly Shiite Muslim city of Hillah late on Saturday, killing 40 people and injuring 22, the military said.
The blasts, which occurred at about 20:45 on Saturday near the former Saddam Hussein mosque, may have been caused by a pair of car bombs, a military official said on Sunday on condition of anonymity.
The bloodshed and the abduction - the latest claimed by Musab al-Zarqawi's movement, which beheaded an American and a South Korean hostages earlier - threatened to cast a shadow over a Nato summit opening in Istanbul on Monday, where Bush is seeking the alliance's help in stabilising Iraq.
The United States has blamed much of the violence on al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad movement, and reiterated appeals to the Iraqi people to come forward with any information that might lead to his capture. Coalition spokesperson Dan Senor suggested that a $10m reward on al-Zarqawi's head would be paid quickly and noted that the person who turned in Saddam's sons last year received their multimillion dollar reward within a week.
Iraq's interim prime minister warned that if security does not improve, it may become necessary to delay national elections set for January - a key landmark in the path to democracy that the United States has tried to enshrine before handing power to the Iraqis on Wednesday.
- AP