Iraq Groups Threaten to Behead MORE ! INCLUDING AN AMERICAN!

[ZaLandCruiser]

'Armed group threatens to behead 'US Marine

An armed group saying it has kidnapped a US Marine has threatened to behead the captive unless Iraqi prisoners are released in the war-torn country, according to a video broadcast on Al Jazeera television.

The group, which called itself the "Islamic Retaliation Movement - Armed Resistance Wing," said it had abducted the Marine of Pakistani origin and would execute him unless detainees in US-led coalition prisons are not freed.

It identified the US hostage as Hasun Wassef Ali, claiming to have abducted him after "infiltrating a US military base in Iraq".

Earlier, an armed group said it would behead a Pakistani within 72 hours unless prisoners are released in Iraq, in a video broadcast by Al Arabiya television.

The Dubai-based satellite news channel showed four hooded gunmen standing behind a man who was described as a Pakistani employee.

A member of the group, reading a statement, said they captured the Pakistani who worked at a US base in Balad, 75 kilometres north of Baghdad, and threatened to kill him within three days unless local detainees were freed.

The ID of the Pakistani was shown, naming him as Yousf Amjid, an employee of US contractor Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton.

Pakistan is trying to confirm the man's identity.

"We are trying to find out the details," Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told AFP.

"We are not sure if he is a Pakistani... Our embassy in Iraq is taking the necessary action."

The hostage said he had travelled to Iraq from neighbouring Kuwait in search of work. He called on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to close his country's embassy in Baghdad and to repatriate all Pakistanis, while urging compatriots to stay away.

"There is no work here. I ask you not to come," he said on Al Arabiya.

Pakistan, the world's second largest Muslim country, opposed the United States' decision to invade Iraq last year without United Nations approval.

It has resisted US and British appeals to send troops to help stabilise Iraq but has said it could consider sending soldiers if asked to do so by the United Nations or the people of Iraq.

-- AFP
Gunmen threaten to behead Pakistani
By Miral Fahmy

DUBAI (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen in Iraq have kidnapped a Pakistani driver and are threatening to behead him within three days unless Iraqi prisoners are released, Al Arabiya television has reported.

"This man was taken after an attack on a U.S. base in Balad," said a masked gunman on a tape broadcast by the Dubai-based television channel on Sunday.

"You must release our prisoners held near the U.S. base in Balad, in Dujail, in Yethrib, in Samarra and near Abu Ghraib. You have three days from the date of this recording and after that we will behead him. We have warned you."

Balad, Dujail, Yethrib and Samarra are towns north of Baghdad. Abu Ghraib is a Baghdad jail that was the scene of much-publicised abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. forces.

The gunmen did not say whether they were affiliated to Jama'at al-Tawhid and Jihad, a group headed by al Qaeda-linked operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi which has carried out previous kidnappings and beheadings of foreign hostages in Iraq.

The tape showed three men, their faces covered by chequered Arab headdresses, standing behind the crouching Pakistani, who displayed an identity card from U.S. firm Kellogg, Brown and Root which works with the U.S. military.

On the tape, the Pakistani man urged President Pervez Musharraf -- a key ally in the U.S. war on terror -- to shut down Pakistan's embassy in Iraq. His comments were translated into Arabic by Arabiya.

The Pakistani was the latest foreigner to be taken hostage by Iraqi militants.
Militants Threaten to Kill 3 Turkish Hostages in Iraq

Jama'at al Tawhid and Jihad -- in a tape broadcast by Al Jazeera television on Saturday -- said it had kidnapped three Turkish contractors. It also threatened to behead them within 72 hours if Turkey did not withdraw all companies working with the U.S.-led occupation forces.

Zarqawi's group also said it had beheaded South Korean hostage Kim Sun-il last week after Seoul rejected demands to pull military medics and engineers out of Iraq and drop plans to send more troops.

The group also decapitated U.S. contractor Nicholas Berg in Iraq last month.

U.S. officials say Zarqawi is their top fore and "number one target" in Iraq. His group has claimed responsibility for many suicide bombings and assassinations of Iraqi officials in the run up to June 30, the date when an interim Iraqi government is set to formally take over from U.S.-led occupation authorities.
Kimmitt said the latest strike, on Friday, may have come close to killing the Jordanian militant. He said several cars were seen driving away from the building after it was hit.
"It's the coalition's assessment that it could have been Zarqawi and his key leaders," Kimmitt said. "It may not have been. Only time will tell."

Senior military officials said 20 to 25 militants were killed in Friday's strike. But one Falluja resident at the scene said no one had been killed.

"I swear to God, nobody died here except this rabbit," said a man in an Arab robe, dangling a dead rabbit in one hand.

Iraqi guerrillas and tribal leaders in Falluja have denied that Zarqawi is in the city. "This is a lie to excuse the strikes by occupation planes on the houses of citizens," said a statement from the General Council of Falluja Tribal Leaders.

Hundreds of Iraqis were killed in Falluja in April in fierce fighting between U.S. Marines and guerrillas.

The civilian death toll caused an outcry in Iraq and a truce was agreed under which Marines pulled out of the city and handed responsibility for security to an Iraqi force. Critics say Falluja has become a safe haven for foreign militants.

CAR BOMB BLASTS

Guerrillas have mounted a series of attacks this month as the June 30 formal handover of sovereignty to Iraqis approaches.

Witnesses in Hilla, 62 miles south of Baghdad, said several people were killed and wounded in Saturday evening's car bomb blast. The U.S. army said it had no immediate information.

Earlier on Saturday insurgents stormed the offices of two political parties in Baquba, 40 miles north of Baghdad.

An attack on the offices of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shi'ite group that has been cooperating with the U.S.-led administration, killed three guards and wounded two, officials said.
Guerrillas also blew up a building used by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqi National Accord party in Baquba.
Kimmitt said six guerrillas were killed in Saturday's fighting in the town. He said one of the dead fighters was found with TNT strapped to his body.

In Arbil, 220 miles north of Baghdad, a car bomb on Saturday morning killed a shopkeeper and wounded dozens of people including Mahmoud Mohammed, culture minister in the Kurdish regional government.

"I was on my way to the ministry. There was a car bomb. The blast hit my car from outside. The people who were with me were injured too," Mohammed said from his hospital bed where he was recovering from a head wound.

"It is like any terrorist attack. They want to end peace and democracy," he said. "The only language they know is violence." (Additional reporting by Seb Walker in Arbil and Miral Fahmy in Dubai)

WOW THEY HAVE gotten worse  :'(.

[DEBKARLAR]

It is dishearting to hear or see anyone die but,
Terrorist are known to do extreme things.
why would any of this surprise you?

[ef9n15]

I hate those iraqis and they're stupid country.I just want to bomb that freakin' place and get the hell out of there.It's not worth losing americans over the middle east's problems.

[Super Duckie]

they are handing Saddam over tomorrow to the Iraqies, guess we will have to go catch him again in a few years

[evilone373]

well not to be cruel but when should the US have behead-a-raghead day?
eye for an eye
but then again no one would be running the motels and hotels on the sides of the interstates nor would there be any more 7-11's
kinda strange when a foreigner can come into the country and get a tax free business loan and then switch it to a family member once the 10 year period ends.

but then again from what i see the ones doing all the so called "terror" are hiding behind a hooded mask,lmao kinda brings back memories of the klan can someone say COWARDS
but again our motto is to go over and take planes and bomb from the skies so i guess the same could be said of us.
so whatever happened to settling the score out in the street,i mean i remember when me or friends had problems it was just an old fashioned a** kicking,now its guns knives bombs wtf has society come to
cowardice?

[fatkid]

Why the need for fighting?  Why can't we all get along?  What would Jesus do?  ::)

[bob@pogopal]

Jesus would have his head cut off for our sins then rise from the dead three days later. Unfortunately, that's not an option for most of us.

[bob@pogopal]

A more enlightening question might be "What would Mohammed do?"

I suspect he would have one of the terrorists condemn his fellows so that he could deflect blame for killing the men and then raping and enslaving... um, I mean marrying the women. Mohammed was as big a fan of plausible deniability as Pontius Pilate was.

Anyone know what Buddha would do?

[DEBKARLAR]

Wat was Buddah's Ideology's?

[bob@pogopal]

I am certainly not any kind of theologian let alone a buddhist theologian, but I kinda think buddha had different different ideologies depending on the mood. He had his fat phase and his thin phase and didn't he have a tree phase stuck in there?

In his zen phase, I suspect he would contemplate some question like: If an iraqi olympic athlete dies screaming in a dungeon and there is nobody there to hear, do his screams really make a sound?