Russian, Ukrainian Hostages Freed in Iraq
Tue Apr 13, 2004 10:07 AM ET
By Alistair Lyon
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Islamist group holding four Italians demanded that
Italy pull its troops out of Iraq, after other kidnappers freed five Ukrainians
and three Russians on Tuesday in the latest spin of the hostage carousel.
The past week's kidnappings have lent a new dimension to the Iraq conflict, snaring civilians from a dozen countries, some of which, like Russia, opposed the war that ousted Saddam Hussein.
Al Jazeera television showed a tape of four men it described as Italian hostages seated on the ground holding their passports, with armed men behind them.
Italian state RAI television said earlier that four Italians working for private security firm DPS were missing and could be the same men whom insurgents claimed last week to have captured.
The Ukrainians and Russians were freed a day after they were seized in Iraq, where a U.S. military crackdown has led to the abduction of over 40 foreigners and a flare-up of violence.
Fresh fighting erupted around Falluja, where witnesses said guerrillas had shot down a U.S. Apache helicopter. A U.S. soldier was killed in an overnight convoy attack near Najaf.
In a move likely to anger Shi'ite rebels, U.S. troops detained an aide to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in a Baghdad hotel, taking him away in an armored vehicle and releasing him after five hours, witnesses said. No reason was given for his detention.
DEFIANT SADR
Sadr's Mehdi Army militia staged an uprising across the south last week, posing a new challenge to U.S.-led forces already struggling to crush a Sunni insurgency in central Iraq.
Hazem al-Araji, a cleric and aide to Sadr in a northern Baghdad district, was seized as he was leaving the Palestine Hotel after being interviewed by Italian journalists.
Sadr said Tuesday he was willing to sacrifice his life in the struggle against the U.S.-led occupation. "I call on the people not to let my killing spark the collapse of what they are doing in rejecting the occupation and seeking freedom," he told Lebanon's Hizbollah-run al-Manar television.
A voice on the tape shown on Al Jazeera said a group called the Mujahideen
Brigades was holding the four Italians.
"The Italian government...should vow and give guarantees to withdraw
its forces from Iraq and give a time schedule and to free Muslim clerics in
Iraq," it said.
Iraqi insurgents told Reuters Friday they had seized four Italians and two Americans west of Baghdad. It was not clear if the Italians were those shown on the tape.
Interfax news agency said Russia's biggest contractor in Iraq was evacuating all its 370 staff after the kidnap of the eight Russians and Ukrainians, who work for an engineering firm.
Witnesses said the eight returned to the villa from where gunmen had taken them Monday.
Igor Anatolyevic, one of the freed Russians, said about eight men with Kalashnikov assault rifles, pistols and grenades had broken into the villa and abducted them at gunpoint.
"I will stay in Iraq," he told Reuters.
But Russia's Interfax quoted a Foreign Ministry source as saying Moscow was considering evacuating all its 500 or so nationals, most of whom work in Iraq's energy and power sectors.
Seven Chinese nationals seized separately near Falluja were freed Monday. Three Czech journalists were reported missing.
The fate of three Japanese hostages whose captors threatened Thursday to kill them unless Tokyo withdrew its troops from Iraq remained unclear.
Fighting erupted in al-Karma, near Falluja, and a Reuters photographer saw smoke billowing from the town after U.S. helicopter strikes. A U.S. truck was blazing nearby. Locals said two women and three men had been killed in the fighting.
Fresh clashes also threatened a shaky truce in Falluja, the scene of fierce
fighting last week between U.S. Marines and Sunni insurgents. Residents reported
hearing blasts and heavy machinegun fire on the eastern edge of the city.
Witnesses said the Apache helicopter crashed west of Baghdad between Falluja
and the Abu Ghraib district, where another Apache was shot down Sunday. The
U.S. military had no immediate comment on the latest downing and there was
no word on the fate of the helicopter's crew.
The U.S. army said a bomb attack on a convoy killed a U.S. soldier Tuesday and wounded another soldier and a civilian contractor. The convoy, traveling from Baquba to Najaf, was hit just after midnight by a roadside bomb planted south of Baghdad.
The U.S. military said Monday it would kill or capture Sadr, who is believed to be in Najaf, a city holy to Shi'ites.
Three mortar rounds hit Baghdad. One landed in a street, killing an Iraqi. Another sent smoke rising from the main U.S. compound, but a military spokesman had no word on casualties.
The attack jangled nerves in a city already shaken by Iraq's bloodiest days since the fall of Saddam Hussein a year ago.
Ahmed al-Ani, an official at Falluja's main hospital, said more than 625 people had died in the fighting there, including about 20 killed in the past three days of sporadic gunfire.
The Marines attacked rebels in Falluja last week in response to the murder and mutilation of four American private security guards ambushed in the town on March 31.
Faced with spreading violence in Iraq, General John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the region, said he wanted two more brigades to join the 145,000 U.S.-led troops already there.
President Bush said the drive to crush "lawlessness and gangs" was vital for a planned handover of power to Iraqis on June 30 and a transition to democracy.
In the past few days, U.S. troops have been moving into Shi'ite areas of central and southern Iraq, where a Polish-led multinational force is responsible for security.
"We are here waiting to be unleashed. We are more than ready," said Colonel Dana Pittard, commander of the 3rd Brigade Task Force deployed some 20 km (12 miles) from Najaf.
Witnesses said Iraqi police had returned to duty in Najaf in the past two days, but Sadr's militiamen remained in the city.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
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