Arab hostage shown on TV
2004-06-05 13:51
Dubai - A gang of heavily armed Iraqis paraded an Arab hostage in a video shown on Al-Jazeera television on Saturday, warning lorry drivers not to work for the "infidel" US-led occupation forces.
The man speaking with a Kuwaiti accent said he was called "Saydan Saadun" and had been driving a lorry-load of supplies from the emirate when he was caught on the motorway just outside the Iraqi capital.
His truck was blown up in what he said was an attack by mujahedeen fighters on a convoy supposed to have been defended by Iraqi forces.
"I swear before God and before you I will not do this again and advise all drivers never to collaborate with the Americans again," he said dressed in white and prompted by one of the masked gunmen reading from a statement. Another man held an assault rifle to the back of the hostage's head.
Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite channel did not say how it obtained the video tape.
On Wednesday, a group of armed Iraqis threatened to execute a Turk and an Egyptian for "collaborating" with US occupation forces in Iraq, in a video also shown on Arab television stations.
The two "hostages" sat on the floor holding documents said to be their passports in front of masked men brandishing an array of weapons in a similar scene to Saturday's footage.
"Holy warriors have captured these people carrying supplies and arms to the infidel US army," said one of the gunmen reading a statement addressed to Turkish and Egyptian Muslims.
"They will be judged in accordance with Islamic Sharia (law) because they have betrayed God and his prophet.
All "collaborators with the infidel American enemy will meet the same fate," the man said. "Death will be the fate of all those whose governments do not condemn the terrorism" of the US-led coalition in Iraq.
A wave of kidnappings of foreigners has swept Iraq this year.
The coalition admitted that some 40 people of 12 different nationalities had been taken hostage in the first two weeks of April. Some have since been killed, others released and more kidnapped.
In Warsaw, the Polish foreign ministry said two Polish contractors were kidnapped in Baghdad on Tuesday, although one managed to escape.