8 April 2004, NEWS.com.au
Iraqi insurgents kidnapped three Japanese and two Arabs from Jerusalem, and in a video released Thursday captors armed with automatic rifles threatened to burn the Japanese alive if Tokyo does not withdraw its troops from Iraq within three days.
Eight South Korean missionaries were also kidnapped earlier in the day. One of them escaped and the seven others were later released, South Korea's Foreign Ministry said.
In Japan, the Government said the country had no plans to withdraw its forces from Iraq. It was the first such ultimatum involving foreign civilians taken hostage in Iraq, suggesting a new tactic by militants to pressure governments allied with Washington.
The separate seizures of the Japanese, Koreans and Arabs also could have wider implications for UN workers, journalists, as well as Christian missionaries, security personnel and those doing business with the Iraqi Government. One of the Arabs from east Jerusalem is an Israeli citizen who works for a US aid organization.
The three Japanese were taken in southern Iraq, editors at Al-Jazeera said. It wasn't clear who the captors were, but Shiite militiamen in black garb, similar to the dress worn by the kidnappers in the video, have been engaged in an uprising in the south this week. Japanese troops are based outside the southern Iraqi city of Samawah.
The Arabic TV station Al-Jazeera, broadcasting to Iraq and the rest of the Arab world, showed portions of the video released by a previously unknown group calling itself the "Mujahedeen Squadrons" showing the Japanese blindfolded and surrounded by gunmen. It also shows their passports.
The video shows four black-garbed, masked men pointing knives and swords at the captives' chests and throats as they lay on the floor of a room with concrete walls.
At one point, a gunman dressed in black puts a knife to the throat of one of the men; his eyes widen in panic and he struggles to try to get free. The woman weeps and her lips move as if she were speaking, but there was no audio to the footage.
In a separate kidnapping, the eight South Koreans who set out for Iraq on April 5, were detained by unidentified armed men, a Foreign Ministry official confirmed. One of them managed to escape, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The seven other missionaries from the Korea Council of Evangelical Churches were later released and were in good condition.
The woman who managed to escape, Kim Sang Mi, told Korean news media that her group had been travelling in two cars on a highway from Amman, Jordan, and was stopped 250km west from the Iraq capital.
She said armed men took them captive after checking their passports, suggesting the seizure might be connected to South Korea's plans to send 3600 troops to Iraq.
Media in Israel reported that two Arab residents of Jerusalem were also kidnapped. One of them, who holds an Israeli passport, works for an international aid agency.
Footage from Iranian television, rebroadcast on Israeli television, showed photographs of the men's documents, which included an Israeli drivers license, a local health insurance card and a supermarket card. A Georgia drivers license belonging to one of the men was also displayed.
In the footage, the men identified themselves as Nabil Razouk, 30, and Ahmed Yassin Tikati, 33. In Jerusalem, Razouk's uncle, Anton, said that he works for the US Agency for International Development.
On Al-Jazeera, an announcer read a statement that he said came with the video of the three Japanese captives in which the kidnappers issue a three-day ultimatum for Japan to announce it will withdraw its troops from southern Iraq.
"Three of your sons have fallen into our hands," the Al-Jazeera announcer read. "We offer you two choices: either pull out your forces, or we will burn them alive. We give you three days starting the day this tape is broadcast."
Japan's NHK television identified the captives as two aid workers and a journalist.
The full video shows the Japanese crouched blindfolded on the floor of a concrete walled room with an iron door. Four masked men dressed in black stand behind them holding automatic weapons and RPG launchers.
The gunmen remove the blindfolds and make the Japanese lay one-by-one on the floor, and point swords and knives at their chests and throats.
The gunmen then show passports identifying the three as: Noriaki Imai, born 1985; Soichiro Koriyama, 32; Nahoko Takato, 34. They also show a press card for Koriyama from the weekly newspaper Asahi.
Japan has about 530 ground troops based in Samawah, part of a total planned deployment of 1100 soldiers for a mission in Iraq to purify water and carry out other reconstruction tasks. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has been one of the strongest backers of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
About 460 South Korean medics and military engineers have been in Nasiriyah for almost a year. They are to come home after South Korea's planned deployment of up to 3600 troops to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq later this year.
The kidnappings came amid escalating violence in Iraq. Earlier this week, two South Korean aid workers were briefly detained by Shiite Muslim forces during a gunbattle with Italian peacekeepers. They were released unharmed.
The Associated Press
Troops Out or We Kill Hostages
