Posted on 10/26/2004 9:06:53 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Tue Oct 26, 8:53 PM ET World - Reuters
By Michael Georgy
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's militant group threatened to behead a Japanese hostage it said worked with Japan's forces in Iraq (news - web sites) if Tokyo did not withdraw its troops from the country within 48 hours.
"They want the Japanese government and Prime Minister (Junichiro) Koizumi to withdraw Japanese troops from Iraq or they will cut my head (off)," the hostage said in a video posted on Tuesday on an Internet site often used by militants.
A masked militant read out a statement, while another grabbed the hostage by the hair and pulled his head up to face the camera. It was not clear from the militant's Arabic comments whether the hostage, wearing a white shirt, was a soldier.
Japan, which has around 550 non-combat troops working on humanitarian and reconstruction projects in southern Iraq as part of U.S.-led multinational forces, said on Wednesday it was checking on the video but no member of its military was missing.
Kyodo news agency quoted Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda as saying the hostage was probably a private citizen.
"The (Japanese) Self-Defense Forces will not withdraw from Iraq," Japanese media reported Koizumi as saying.
Koizumi's dispatch of troops to Samawa, some 170 miles south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has divided the Japanese public, with critics saying it violates Japan's pacifist constitution.
The hostage, seated in front of three masked men and a black banner bearing the name of Zarqawi's al Qaeda Organization of Holy War group, spoke in English and then in Japanese.
"We grant the Japanese government 48 hours to withdraw its troops from Iraq or this infidel will meet the same fate as Berg ... and the other infidels," Zarqawi's group said, referring to American Nick Berg who was beheaded by the militants in May.
Washington and Iraq's U.S.-backed interim government blame Zarqawi's group for the bloodiest suicide bombings and hostage beheadings in the violence that has plagued Iraq almost since U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) last year.
Militants have seized dozens of foreigners since April in a campaign to try and force U.S.-led forces and foreign contractors to leave Iraq.
In July, the Philippines decided to withdraw its 50 troops to save a Filipino hostage threatened with death by militants.
The U.S. military has branded Zarqawi its number one enemy in Iraq and Washington has put a $25 million bounty on his head.
U.S. officials said the Pentagon (news - web sites) was considering increasing U.S. forces in Iraq to help ensure security for planned national assembly elections in January by delaying the departure of some troops and speeding the arrival of others.
News of discussions on increasing the troop strength emerged a week before the U.S. presidential election, with President Bush (news - web sites) under attack from Democrat challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) over the financial and human cost of Iraq.
No final decision had been made on whether or how to increase the U.S. contingent from 138,000 troops, U.S. defense officials said.
"I think they're definitely going to extend (tours of duty for) some guys," said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity. He added he did not expect any announcement until after the U.S. election.
Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on Tuesday that what he called major neglect by U.S.-led forces led to a massacre of 49 unarmed army recruits at the weekend.
In one of the bloodiest attacks on Iraq's fledgling security forces, the recruits were shot in the back of their heads after being stopped by guerrillas posing as policemen as they traveled home for leave.
"There was an ugly crime," Allawi told Iraq's national council, adding without elaboration: "We believe this issue was the outcome of major neglect by some parts of the multinational (forces)."
Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attack.
Iraq's Minister of State for National Security Affairs, Kassim Daoud, later softened the government's tone, saying he was not assigning blame but waiting for the findings of a government-ordered inquiry due in three weeks.
"The investigation will seek to determine whether inside information was obtained on the movement of troops and why the troops were unarmed and without armed escort," he said.
A statement by the U.S.-led forces said: "This was a cold-blooded and systematic massacre by terrorists. They and no one else must be held fully accountable for these heinous acts."
A militant group called the Army of Ansar al-Sunna said it had abducted 11 members of the Iraqi National Guard and posted their pictures on its Web site on Tuesday.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said he had no information.
"If I were faced with a beheading, with a dull knife, I cannot clearly predict whether I myself would babble and cry or fight and curse them. So, I don't think we can judge the actions of any of those who have been murdered via decapitation by those animals."
Nope, won't judge at all.
There is some information out that the terrorists drug the people prior to the beheading, Catamine, something like PCP may be misspelled.
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