AP: 6 Foreigners Held Hostages

Politics | July 21, 2004, Wednesday // 00:00
AP: 6 Foreigners Held Hostages Militant group says it has taken six foreign truck drivers hostage and will behead them if their countries do not withdraw their forces. Kenya, India and Egypt do not have troops in Iraq. Photo by AP.

An Islamic militant group declared the kidnapping of six foreigners, reportedly truck drivers, in Iraq.

The abductors claimed to have taken hostage two Kenyans, three Indians and an Egyptian and would behead them, unless their countries announce their intention to withdraw troops from Iraq immediately.

However, none of those countries have been part of the 160,000-member coalition force in Iraq.

The group calling itself "The Holders of the Black Banners," declared they would behead one of the hostages every 72 hours if their nations did not pull out of Iraq and the company they work for did not close its branch here. The haulier company appears to be located in Kuwait.

In pictures provided to the Associated Press alongside the statement, six of the hostages are shown standing behind three seated, masked gunmen. One of the hostages holds a paper with the typed names of seven men - presumably six of them were the hostages - their nationalities, passport numbers and the registration numbers of the trucks they were driving.

The paper is stamped July 20 and the words "Universal Services" were handwritten on top.

The names on the paper were Ibrahim Khamis, from Kenya, Salm Faiz Khamis, from Kenya, Jalal Awadh, from Kenya, Antaryami, from India, Tilak Raj, from India, Sukdev Singh, from India, and Mohammed Ali Sanad, from Egypt. It was not clear which of the Kenyans listed on the paper was not among the hostages, AP commented.

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