Hostage-takings well organised
2004-12-24 15:35
Paris - Iraqi militants told French journalists they held captive for four months that they wanted George W Bush to win re-election and that they view foreign businessmen working in Iraq as their enemies.
In a four-page account of their ordeal, one of the reporters, Georges Malbrunot, also said they saw several other hostages who were later decapitated.
One of their captors from the group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq said Bush's re-election as the US president would help attract support for their cause, Malbrunot wrote in Friday's edition of Le Figaro, the French daily he works for.
"We want Bush because with him the American troops will stay in Iraq and that way we will be able to develop," Malbrunot cited the guard as saying before Bush defeated Democrat John Kerry.
Four enemies
Another captor, who described himself as the group's head of internal intelligence, told the men that the Islamic Army has four enemies: American and coalition troops, "their collaborators, that is to say Italian businessmen, or even French," as well Iraqi police and spies.
Malbrunot wrote that the Islamic Army has about 15 000 to 17 000 members and that its hostage-takings are carefully organised.
"There are those who stop people on the roads, those that carry out interrogations, those that keep guard and those that judge," he wrote.
He and fellow French reporter Christian Chesnot feared at times that they would be killed, he said.
Other hostages
Other hostages they saw who were later decapitated included two Macedonians, an Iraqi power station executive and a bodyguard for Ahmad Chalabi, a candidate in next month's Iraqi elections and a one-time Pentagon favorite, he recounted.
Malbrunot, 41, and Chesnot, 38, were released on Tuesday and flown back to France on Wednesday. They were taken captive on August 20.
In a separate interview on RTL radio, Malbrunot said it would take time to recover from their ordeal.
"Sleeping, for example, is hard," he said.
"But the life of a free man is far easier than that of a hostage," he added.
- AP