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US journalist faces execution
18/08/2004 23:37 - (SA)
Doha - An armed group in Iraq has threatened to kill a kidnapped American journalist unless United States forces withdraw from the Shiite holy city of Najaf within 48 hours, reported Al-Jazeera television on Wednesday, showing a video.
"An armed group calling itself 'Martyrs Squad' has announced that it is holding American journalist Micah Garen ... and threatened to kill the hostage after 48 hours if US forces do not withdraw from the city of Najaf," it said.
The news channel aired a video in which the presumed hostage was shown with five hooded gunmen in the background, one of whom was reading a statement.
However, the gunman was not heard speaking.
Najaf has been the site of a showdown between Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr and US and US-backed Iraqi forces.
The US state department said earlier on Wednesday it was without news of Garen, who was kidnapped in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah last weekend.
Investigating ambulance destruction
Garen, 36, founder of Four Corners Media of New York and Colorado, a company that produces documentary videos, photos and text, was abducted on Saturday with his Iraqi interpreter, Amir Doshe, in a Nasiriyah marketplace.
In the days prior to the abduction, Garen had been investigating the destruction of an ambulance by Italian troops, and the death of the vehicle's passengers, according to his message exchanges with friends and a press rights group.
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