Kidnappers threaten to kill

2005-12-03 14:19

Baghdad - Kidnappers threatened to murder four Western peace activists they abducted in Iraq last week as a rebel bomb attack killed 10 US troops in the deadliest strike on the military for several months.

In a video that appeared on Al-Jazeera television, the kidnappers said that unless all detainees in Iraqi and coalition prisons are released by December 8, they would kill the American, British and Canadian hostages.

The news came as the military said 10 marines were killed on Thursday night by a massive bomb made of artillery shells near Fallujah in al-Anbar province, the single deadliest attack against US forces since August.

In the last week, 19 US military personnel have died in Iraq, mostly in the restive western al-Anbar province where hundreds of US and Iraqi forces are engaged in an operation against insurgents in the town of Ramadi.

The Pentagon announced on Saturday the death of four more soldiers in Iraq, one in combat in the Ramadi operation, the others in a car accident in the northern city of Balad.

A total of 2 125 US service personnel have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, according to a Pentagon toll.

The new video statement by the previously unknown Brigades of the Swords of the Right called for the release of Iraqis held by the Iraqi interior ministry and coalition forces.

Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Sooden, 32, American Tom Fox, 54, and 74-year-old Briton Norman Kember were seized in Baghdad on Saturday.

- AFP