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Hostages threatened with death
18/09/2004 11:04 - (SA)
Doha - Suspected al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi's group has threatened to execute two Americans and a Briton it is holding unless Iraqi women prisoners are freed within 48 hours, according to a video aired by Al-Jazeera television on Saturday which showed the captives blindfolded.
"The Tawhid wal Jihad (Unification and Holy War) group has set a 48-hour deadline for the release of Iraqi women prisoners from the prisons of Abu Ghraib (outside Baghdad) and Um al-Qasr (in the south) in exchange for the release of a Briton and two Americans it abducted in Baghdad on Thursday," Al-Jazeera said.
"The group added in a video received by Al-Jazeera that it would execute the captives if its demand is not met within the set deadline," it added.
The Qatar-based news channel showed footage of the three captives blindfolded, with a hooded gunman behind them pointing a machinegun at their heads.
US nationals Jack Hensley and Eugene "Jack" Armstrong and British engineer Kenneth Bigley were abducted by gunmen early on Thursday from their house in Baghdad's upscale Mansour district.
The kidnapping of the three men, which had hitherto not been claimed, was the latest in a string of high profile abductions of Westerners in Iraq.
Two French journalists were abducted almost a month ago and two Italian aid workers, along with two of their Iraqi colleagues, were grabbed from their offices on September 7.
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