Iraq: Hostage crisis heats up

2004-07-25 20:36

Baghdad - Two Pakistani citizens were reported kidnapped in Iraq on Sunday, ratcheting up tension after abductors threatened to start beheading seven captives unless their Kuwait-based trucking company cease operations in Iraq.

The kidnappers of the seven truckers seized last week had originally set a deadline for Saturday, at which time they would start killing them. But a 48-hour extension was announced by the "Holders of the Black Banners" group on Al-Jazeera late Friday.

Iraq's interim government said on Sunday that it had begun investigating the disappearance of two Pakistanis disappearance.

Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson Masood Khan said in Islamabad that the two latest hostages identified as engineer Raja Azad and truck-driver Sajjad Naeem had gone missing on Friday.

Late last month a Pakistani driver Amjad Hafeez was abducted by a group of Iraqi insurgents who threatened to behead him. However he was freed him after a week in response to appeals by his mother and the Pakistan government.

Those held in Iraq include the number three in the Egyptian embassy, Mohamed Mamdouh Hilmi Kotbwas, who was abducted Friday in central Baghdad after he went out to attend evening prayers.

He was apparently seized in reaction to what his captors, self-identified as the Lions of Allah, described as Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif's offer of his country's security expertise to Iraq.

Iraq has pressed Egypt not to cave in to the kidnappers. Earlier, the Philippines government withdrew troops from Iraq earlier than planned in exchange for the freedom of a Filipino hostage.

T he group that captured the seven truck drivers last week - three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian - demanded that the Kuwaiti transport company for which they work leave Iraq by 16:00 on Monday, or it would behead one of the captives every 24 hours.

- AFP