Kidnappers threaten to kill Iraq hostages in days

[NW10]

Kidnappers threaten to kill Iraq hostages in days
From Catherine Philp in Baghdad

KIDNAPPERS threatened last night to kill an elderly British peace activist and his American and Canadian colleagues by Thursday unless Iraqi and American authorities released all detainees held in Iraq. The group also demanded the immediate withdrawal of American and British troops from Iraq.
The threats came in a statement accompanying the delivery of a new video of the four hostages, among them Norman Kember, 74, the Briton, to the Arabic television channel al-Jazeera.



“It gave a deadline for those concerned until December 8 to meet the demands,” the channel reported. It gave those it called “the people concerned with abductees affairs” until next Thursday to meet its demands or it would kill the four.

The tape, broadcast late last night, showed Mr Kember along with two Canadians and an American working with the peace activist group, Christian Peacemakers, who were snatched in Baghdad last weekend. All looked frightened and pale but none of their words could be heard.

The Canadians were shown eating from plates of what appeared to be Arabic sweets. In a second clip, Mr Kember and the American were shown talking to the camera but no soundtrack was provided. The video was the second to be released by the kidnappers, who call themselves the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, a previously unknown group.

Security sources in Baghdad said the four were snatched last weekend as they left a Sunni mosque in the al-Mansour district of Baghdad known as a stronghold of followers of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the group led by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Their abandoned car was later found in another area known as an al-Zarqawi stronghold, raising fears that the group holding them may be affiliates of the Jordanian.

The kidnappings broke a year-long lull following a wave of abductions of Westerners.

Security sources say that the majority of kidnappings are carried out to win ransom to raise funds for the insurgency, which led to a surge in abductions last year of citizens of countries known to pay out. Often insurgents are unaware of the nationality of hostages until after they are snatched, and often decide whether to use them for political or financial purposes only after they are in captivity. Few British or American hostages have emerged alive from the clutches of extremist Sunni groups, after those two countries’ strong public stance against ransom payment.

In the first video, broadcast on Tuesday, the group accused the four of being spies for their governments.

Christian Peacemakers rejected the charge, saying that the four were vociferous opponents of the war, and were in Iraq on a peace-building mission and to investigate human rights abuses against Iraqi detainees.

The British Government said it was still hopeful that the kidnappers would release Mr Kember and the three other hostages despite threats to kill them.

“We are investigating this latest development and we are in constant touch with Mr Kember’s family through a family liaison officer,” said a Foreign Office spokesman following the broadcast of the video.

“We are also in touch with the Iraqi authorities, and of course we are hopeful that Mr Kember and his colleagues will be released unharmed and reunited with their families.”

Mr Kember’s fellow hostages are Tom Fox, 54, James Looney, 41, and Harmed Singh Sodden, 32.