Monday, September 20, 2004
Hostage Deadline Passes; Iraq Clerics Slain
7 minutes ago
By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Relatives pleaded Monday for the release of two Americans and a Briton held hostage as a deadline passed for their beheading. In Baghdad, gunmen assassinated two clerics from a powerful Sunni Muslim group opposed to the U.S. presence in Iraq (news - web sites).
AP Photo
AFP
Slideshow: Iraq
Latest headlines:
·
Web Site: American Hostage Killed in Iraq AP - 1 minute ago
·
Death threat hangs over US, British hostages in Iraq AFP - 3 minutes ago
·
Kerry Blasts Bush for 'Colossal Failures' in Iraq Reuters - 14 minutes ago
Special Coverage
The Tawhid and Jihad group, led by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has threatened to behead Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong and Briton Kenneth Bigley on Monday unless Iraqi women are released from two U.S.-controlled prisons here.
The threat came in a video aired on Al-Jazeera television Saturday, which showed the three construction contractors blindfolded and said they would be killed in 48 hours. No exact time for the deadline was given. But 48 hours after the video's release, there was still no word on the fate of the three construction contractors, who were snatched Thursday from their Baghdad home.
Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes struck in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, west of the capital, and doctors reported three people killed. The U.S military said its planes hit equipment militants were using to build fortifications in the city and that care was taken that "no innocent civilians" were there at the time. Doctors said the dead were municipal workers using a bulldozer on construction projects near the railway station.
In the northern city of Mosul, a car packed with explosives blew up in a residential neighborhood, killing its two passengers and a passer-by, police at Al-Salaam hospital said. Police had been searching for the vehicle, which was reported stolen earlier Monday.
Insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades Monday, killing an American soldier, near Sharqat, 168 miles north of Baghdad, the military said. More than 1,000 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003.
It was not immediately known who was behind the gunning-down of two Sunni clerics Sunday night and Monday in Baghdad.
The two clerics belonged to the Association of Muslim Scholars, a grouping of conservative clerics that opposes the U.S. presence in Iraq and has emerged as a powerful representative of Iraq's Sunni minority.
The association is believed to have contacts with Sunni insurgents, though it denies any links with them. It has interceded often in the past to win the release of foreign hostages, and militant groups have asked the association for a religious ruling on whether kidnappings and killing of hostages are permitted.
Gunmen shot and killed Sheik Mohammed Jadoa al-Janabi, a member of the association, as he entered a mosque in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite al-Baya neighborhood to perform noon prayers Monday, the association said.
The previous night, gunmen kidnapped Sheik Hazem al-Zeidi and two of his bodyguards as he left a mosque in another largely Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad, Sadr City. Al-Zeidi was killed and the bodyguards were released Monday, the association said.
A few clerics from the association have been killed in the past — most recently in February. But the motives in those and the latest slayings have been unclear.
There have been tit-for-tat killings of Shiite and Sunni clerics in the past year, widely believed to be motivated by sectarian sentiments.
The Sunni minority dominated Iraq for centuries but is now eclipsed by the Shiite majority and the Kurds, and there are resentments from all sides. The association rose to prominence as the champion of Iraq's Sunni Arabs when its leaders played a key role in organizing taking relief supplies to Fallujah in April, when it was besieged by U.S. Marines.
The association's leaders routinely criticize the government of Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and call for the departure of American and other foreign troops in Iraq.
However, one of its key members, Sheik Ahmed Abdul-Ghafour Al-Samarie, may have angered insurgents by criticizing attacks against Iraqi police that left dozens dead last week. Al-Samarie said the attacks should instead be directed against foreign troops — not Iraqi civilians.
The group may have also raised the ire of the militants by failing to act as yet on calls to issue a fatwa, or religious edict, sanctioning the kidnapping of foreigners.
The clerics' slaying also come on the heels of the beheading — apparently by Sunni insurgents — of three Kurdish militiamen taken hostage in the north.
Insurgents waging a 17-month campaign of violence against U.S. and Iraqi forces have used kidnappings and spectacular bombings as their weapons of choice to undermine the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and push the United States out of Iraq. There have been 32 car bombings this month — the highest in any month since the U.S. military entered Iraq in March 2003.
The British government and the brother of British hostage Kenneth Bigley appealed for his and the Americans' release in statements broadcast repeatedly Monday on the Arab satellite television station Al-Arabiya.
"Ken has enjoyed working in the Arab world for the last 10 years in civil engineering and has many Arabic friends and is understanding and appreciative of the Islamic culture," said Philip Bigley.
"He wanted to help the ordinary Iraqi people and is just doing his job," he said. "At the end of the day, we just want him home safe and well, especially for my mum Lil."
Hensley's wife, Patty, appeared on the Arab television station Al-Jazeera and said her husband, like all Americans in Iraq, was there to help the Iraqi people.
Patty Hensley told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview broadcast Monday that her husband, a native of Marrieta, Ga., had been optimistic about his safety in Iraq, but that had changed in recent days, when the group's Iraqi security gaurds stopped showing up for work or found excuses to leave.
On NBC's "Today" show Monday, Ty Hensley said his brother, who went to Iraq in February after failing to find construction work and needed money to support his family, recently wrote home saying he was being "staked out" and that the guards feared for their own safety.
Tawhid and Jihad — Arabic for "Monotheism and Holy War" — has claimed responsibility for the slaying of three hostages in the past, including the beheading of American Nicholas Berg, who was abducted in April. The group has also said it is behind a number of bombings and gun attacks.
In the latest kidnapping, it is demanding the release of Iraqi women from Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr prisons. Abu Ghraib is the prison where U.S. soldiers were photographed sexually humiliating male prisoners. The U.S. military says no women are held at either facility, though it says it is holding two female "security prisoners" elsewhere.
More than 100 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq, some for lucrative ransoms, and at least 26 of them have been executed. At least five other Westerners are currently being held hostage here, including an Iraqi-American man, two female Italian aid workers and two French reporters.
Kidnappers released a group of 18 abducted Iraqi National Guard members after renegade Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for their release, an al-Sadr aide Nail al-Kabi told The Associated Press.
"Al-Sadr has called for the release saying such acts are against principles of religion and followers of al-Sadr reject such acts that harm the freedom of citizens," he said. "The kidnapping group appears to have heard the call and released them."
Asked who the kidnappers were, he said it is an unknown group. "They might be sympathizers with al-Sadr," he said.
A video aired on Al-Jazeera showed a group of men said to be the freed hostages, dressed in white robes and holding Qurans apparently given them by the kidnappers.
Al-Jazeera reported Saturday that a group calling itself the Brigades of Mohammed bin Abdullah was threatening to kill the men unless Hazem al-A'araji, an al-Sadr aide detained in a U.S.-Iraqi raid in Baghdad, was released.
Some 300 people have been killed in escalating violence over the past week, including bombings, street fighting and U.S. airstrikes. Despite the unrelenting violence, Allawi said Sunday that his interim government is determined "to stick to the timetable of the elections," which are due by Jan. 31.
"We are adamant that democracy is going to prevail, is going to win in Iraq," Allawi told reporters after a meeting with British leader Tony Blair (news - web sites) in London.
Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) warned there could not be "credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now."
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7 minutes ago
By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Relatives pleaded Monday for the release of two Americans and a Briton held hostage as a deadline passed for their beheading. In Baghdad, gunmen assassinated two clerics from a powerful Sunni Muslim group opposed to the U.S. presence in Iraq (news - web sites).
AP Photo
AFP
Slideshow: Iraq
Latest headlines:
·
Web Site: American Hostage Killed in Iraq AP - 1 minute ago
·
Death threat hangs over US, British hostages in Iraq AFP - 3 minutes ago
·
Kerry Blasts Bush for 'Colossal Failures' in Iraq Reuters - 14 minutes ago
Special Coverage
The Tawhid and Jihad group, led by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has threatened to behead Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong and Briton Kenneth Bigley on Monday unless Iraqi women are released from two U.S.-controlled prisons here.
The threat came in a video aired on Al-Jazeera television Saturday, which showed the three construction contractors blindfolded and said they would be killed in 48 hours. No exact time for the deadline was given. But 48 hours after the video's release, there was still no word on the fate of the three construction contractors, who were snatched Thursday from their Baghdad home.
Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes struck in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, west of the capital, and doctors reported three people killed. The U.S military said its planes hit equipment militants were using to build fortifications in the city and that care was taken that "no innocent civilians" were there at the time. Doctors said the dead were municipal workers using a bulldozer on construction projects near the railway station.
In the northern city of Mosul, a car packed with explosives blew up in a residential neighborhood, killing its two passengers and a passer-by, police at Al-Salaam hospital said. Police had been searching for the vehicle, which was reported stolen earlier Monday.
Insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades Monday, killing an American soldier, near Sharqat, 168 miles north of Baghdad, the military said. More than 1,000 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003.
It was not immediately known who was behind the gunning-down of two Sunni clerics Sunday night and Monday in Baghdad.
The two clerics belonged to the Association of Muslim Scholars, a grouping of conservative clerics that opposes the U.S. presence in Iraq and has emerged as a powerful representative of Iraq's Sunni minority.
The association is believed to have contacts with Sunni insurgents, though it denies any links with them. It has interceded often in the past to win the release of foreign hostages, and militant groups have asked the association for a religious ruling on whether kidnappings and killing of hostages are permitted.
Gunmen shot and killed Sheik Mohammed Jadoa al-Janabi, a member of the association, as he entered a mosque in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite al-Baya neighborhood to perform noon prayers Monday, the association said.
The previous night, gunmen kidnapped Sheik Hazem al-Zeidi and two of his bodyguards as he left a mosque in another largely Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad, Sadr City. Al-Zeidi was killed and the bodyguards were released Monday, the association said.
A few clerics from the association have been killed in the past — most recently in February. But the motives in those and the latest slayings have been unclear.
There have been tit-for-tat killings of Shiite and Sunni clerics in the past year, widely believed to be motivated by sectarian sentiments.
The Sunni minority dominated Iraq for centuries but is now eclipsed by the Shiite majority and the Kurds, and there are resentments from all sides. The association rose to prominence as the champion of Iraq's Sunni Arabs when its leaders played a key role in organizing taking relief supplies to Fallujah in April, when it was besieged by U.S. Marines.
The association's leaders routinely criticize the government of Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and call for the departure of American and other foreign troops in Iraq.
However, one of its key members, Sheik Ahmed Abdul-Ghafour Al-Samarie, may have angered insurgents by criticizing attacks against Iraqi police that left dozens dead last week. Al-Samarie said the attacks should instead be directed against foreign troops — not Iraqi civilians.
The group may have also raised the ire of the militants by failing to act as yet on calls to issue a fatwa, or religious edict, sanctioning the kidnapping of foreigners.
The clerics' slaying also come on the heels of the beheading — apparently by Sunni insurgents — of three Kurdish militiamen taken hostage in the north.
Insurgents waging a 17-month campaign of violence against U.S. and Iraqi forces have used kidnappings and spectacular bombings as their weapons of choice to undermine the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and push the United States out of Iraq. There have been 32 car bombings this month — the highest in any month since the U.S. military entered Iraq in March 2003.
The British government and the brother of British hostage Kenneth Bigley appealed for his and the Americans' release in statements broadcast repeatedly Monday on the Arab satellite television station Al-Arabiya.
"Ken has enjoyed working in the Arab world for the last 10 years in civil engineering and has many Arabic friends and is understanding and appreciative of the Islamic culture," said Philip Bigley.
"He wanted to help the ordinary Iraqi people and is just doing his job," he said. "At the end of the day, we just want him home safe and well, especially for my mum Lil."
Hensley's wife, Patty, appeared on the Arab television station Al-Jazeera and said her husband, like all Americans in Iraq, was there to help the Iraqi people.
Patty Hensley told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview broadcast Monday that her husband, a native of Marrieta, Ga., had been optimistic about his safety in Iraq, but that had changed in recent days, when the group's Iraqi security gaurds stopped showing up for work or found excuses to leave.
On NBC's "Today" show Monday, Ty Hensley said his brother, who went to Iraq in February after failing to find construction work and needed money to support his family, recently wrote home saying he was being "staked out" and that the guards feared for their own safety.
Tawhid and Jihad — Arabic for "Monotheism and Holy War" — has claimed responsibility for the slaying of three hostages in the past, including the beheading of American Nicholas Berg, who was abducted in April. The group has also said it is behind a number of bombings and gun attacks.
In the latest kidnapping, it is demanding the release of Iraqi women from Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr prisons. Abu Ghraib is the prison where U.S. soldiers were photographed sexually humiliating male prisoners. The U.S. military says no women are held at either facility, though it says it is holding two female "security prisoners" elsewhere.
More than 100 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq, some for lucrative ransoms, and at least 26 of them have been executed. At least five other Westerners are currently being held hostage here, including an Iraqi-American man, two female Italian aid workers and two French reporters.
Kidnappers released a group of 18 abducted Iraqi National Guard members after renegade Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for their release, an al-Sadr aide Nail al-Kabi told The Associated Press.
"Al-Sadr has called for the release saying such acts are against principles of religion and followers of al-Sadr reject such acts that harm the freedom of citizens," he said. "The kidnapping group appears to have heard the call and released them."
Asked who the kidnappers were, he said it is an unknown group. "They might be sympathizers with al-Sadr," he said.
A video aired on Al-Jazeera showed a group of men said to be the freed hostages, dressed in white robes and holding Qurans apparently given them by the kidnappers.
Al-Jazeera reported Saturday that a group calling itself the Brigades of Mohammed bin Abdullah was threatening to kill the men unless Hazem al-A'araji, an al-Sadr aide detained in a U.S.-Iraqi raid in Baghdad, was released.
Some 300 people have been killed in escalating violence over the past week, including bombings, street fighting and U.S. airstrikes. Despite the unrelenting violence, Allawi said Sunday that his interim government is determined "to stick to the timetable of the elections," which are due by Jan. 31.
"We are adamant that democracy is going to prevail, is going to win in Iraq," Allawi told reporters after a meeting with British leader Tony Blair (news - web sites) in London.
Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) warned there could not be "credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now."
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