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Transcript This is a transcript from AM. The program is broadcast around Australia at 08:00 on ABC Local Radio. You can also listen to the story in REAL AUDIO and WINDOWS MEDIA formats. Ceasefire collapses, US hostage taken in Iraq AM - Saturday, 10 April , 2004 08:00:58 Reporter: Peter Cave TANYA NOLAN: It's the day after the 12-month anniversary of the toppling of Saddam's regime, and things appear bloodier than ever in Iraq. The ceasefire called by US troops in Fallujah less than 24-hours ago seems to have already collapsed, with mortar rounds ringing out across the Sunni city...

AGHDAD, Iraq, April 10 — A group of armed Iraqi insurgents, their faces masked, claimed on Saturday to be holding 30 foreigners hostage and threatened to kill them unless the United States halted its offensive in Falluja, the Sunni city west of Baghdad.In a film from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that was shown repeatedly on Arabic television, a masked man representing the group said: "We have Japanese, Bulgarian, Israeli, American, Spanish and Korean hostages. Their numbers are 30." He added: "If America doesn't lift its blockade of Falluja, their heads will be cut off." The tape did not show any...

Television pictures on Saturday showed Iraqi 'insurgents' holding a foreigner, apparently American, prisoner in a car outside of Baghdad the day before, the latest in a rash of kidnappings of foriegners in Iraq.The prisoner, who spoke with a southern accent and was apparently wounded in the arm, spoke to a cameraman from the back seat of a car with a masked gunman next to him, on the main highway on Baghdad's western edge where fighting took place Friday.The footage was apparently filmed Friday.The prisoner identified himself as Thomas Hamill to the cameraman (from Australian ABC television news) and said he...

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iraqi group said in footage aired by an Arab TV station on Saturday it was holding 30 foreign hostages and threatened to decapitate them unless U.S. forces lifted their blockade of the town of Falluja.   "We are calling for the withdrawal of American and coalition forces. We have Japanese, Bulgarian, Israeli, American, Spanish and Korean hostages. Their numbers are 30," a masked man holding a Kalashnikov rifle said. "If America doesn't lift its blockade of Falluja their heads will be cut off," he said in the footage in Arabic, which Al Arabiya said it...