Iraq kidnappers extend deadline

2005-12-08 11:14

Dubai - Kidnappers threatening to execute four foreign Christian peace campaigners in Iraq have extended the December 8 deadline by two days, al-Jazeera reports on Wednesday.

Al-Jazeera said the Brigades of the Swords of Right had put back their ultimatum to the United States and Britain to December 10.

Four members of the Christian Peacemakers Team (CPT) non-governmental organisation were abducted in Baghdad on November 26 by the group, which threatened to kill them unless all detainees in US and Iraqi prisons were freed.

The four were Canadians James Loney, 41 and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, US national Tom Fox, 54, and Briton Norman Kember, 74.

US, British hostages

The images, shown without sound, were of two people wearing white tunics and with their hands in chains.

Their faces were not shown, but al-Jazeera said they were the US and British hostages and that they had asked their governments to give in to the kidnappers' demands.

British foreign secretary Jack Straw renewed calls on Wednesday for the release of the Briton and his three colleagues, saying: "These four men are all campaigners for peace, dedicated to the helping of others, and we ask for their release.

"The message of this latest statement is not clear. If the kidnappers want to get in touch, we want to hear what they have to say."

Coalition prisons released

Al-Jazeera last Friday showed a video of the four hostages and said it had received a statement from the kidnappers threatening to kill them, unless all detainees in Iraqi and coalition prisons were released by December 8.

It gave those it called "the people concerned with abductees affairs" until Thursday to meet its demands or said it would kill the four.

The statement was accompanied by a video showing the two Canadian hostages being offered food.

They and the British hostage were also shown calling for an end to the US and British military presence in Iraq.

Jordanian radical Islamist Abu Qatada, dubbed al-Qaeda's spiritual head in Europe, called from his prison cell for the release of the four peace campaigners in a video message broadcast on Wednesday.

Religious duty

Abu Qatada said: "I am your brother Abu Qatada, Omar bin Mahmud Abu Omar, who is imprisoned in Britain."

He said: "I urge my brothers ... the Brigades of the Swords of Right in Iraq ... to release them in line with the principle of mercy of our religion, if there was no compelling religious duty against it."

The foreign office in London said it had allowed the message to be recorded after a request from Qatada's lawyers, but had no part in determining its content.

Separately, veteran US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson said he was prepared to go to Iraq if he knew who to negotiate with and if it would help the plight of the hostages.

He said: "If we knew who to meet with then we are ready."

- AFP