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Militants in Iraq Claim Six New Hostages
By Ashraf Khalil and Jesus Sanchez
Los Angeles Times
Wednesday 21 July 2004
Baghdad - Six truck drivers from India, Kenya and Egypt were taken hostage and will be beheaded if their countries do not order the removal of all their citizens from Iraq, a militant group said today.
The Mideast's most recent hostage crisis came as Saudi Arabian officials announced that they had found some of the remains of hostage Paul Marshall Johnson Jr., an American helicopter engineer, during a raid Tuesday on a Riyadh home that left two suspected terrorists dead. Johnson, who worked for Lockheed Martin on Apache attack helicopters, was beheaded last month.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, police in Ramadi reported that insurgents west of the city had downed a U.S. helicopter with a surface-to-air missile, killing three Marines. However, a U.S. military spokesman told Reuters news service that the reports of the helicopter downing were false.
Ramadi, located west of Baghdad, was the site of day-long fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents, who attacked a convoy earlier in the day, according to Iraqi police. Five people were reported injured during the skirmishes.
Also, in Baghdad, two Iraqis were killed and four were injured after a hospital in the central part of the city came under a mortar attack by insurgents, officials said. The mortar struck one floor above a ward operated by Italian medical workers.
The six hostages employed by a Kuwaiti trucking company were abducted by a group calling itself the Holders of the Black Banners, according to Associated Press.
The group, which submitted a statement and photo of the hostages to the AP, threatened to behead one hostage every 72 hours starting Wednesday if their countries failed to withdraw all their citizens from Iraq. The abductors also demanded that the trucking company that employed the hostages close its operations in Iraq.
"We have warned all the countries, companies, businessmen and truck drivers that those who deal with American cowboy occupiers will be targeted by the fires of the Mujahedin," the statement said. "Here you are once again transporting goods, weapons and military equipment that backs the U.S. Army."
AP said the photo showed the six hostages standing behind three seated, masked and armed men. The hostages included three Indians, two Kenyans and an Egyptian citizen.
The kidnapping was announced one day after a Filipino worker was released by his abductors. The worker was freed after the Philippine government agreed to withdraw its troops from Iraq as demanded by the hostage takers.
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