Hopes raised for release of seven hostages in Iraq

7.30am

BAGHDAD - A Kuwaiti company said today it had received assurances that seven of its employees being held hostage by militants in Iraq would be freed.

The kidnappers of the seven truckers - three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian - were reported by Al Arabiya television to have appointed a senior tribal leader to mediate after having threatened last week to behead the captives.

The seven were seized as militants bent on undermining US-led forces and Iraq's new interim government stepped up a campaign of hostage-taking to press demands that foreign troops and foreign companies leave the country.

The Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company said in a statement it was negotiating with the Black Banners group of militants through what it called some Iraqi friends.

"There are promises and assurances (the hostages will be freed), especially after the kidnappers became certain that we have no presence in Iraq and we were just conducting transportation for the interest of some Iraqis," the firm said.

Al Arabiya quoted the Black Banners group as saying it had "appointed Sheikh Hisham al-Dulaymi, head of the National Group of Iraqi Tribal Leaders, to negotiate with the embassies of the hostages and the Kuwaiti firm".

The group has demanded the company should pay compensation to families of the dead in Falluja and that Iraqi prisoners in US and Kuwaiti jails should be released.

Dozens of foreigners have been seized in a wave of hostage-taking that has hit Iraq since April. Some have been freed, but at least six have been killed by their captors, four of them by beheading.

Pakistan said it believed two of its nationals missing in Iraq had been kidnapped, and a daughter of one of the men made an emotional plea for her father Raja Khan's release.

"I miss my father very much. I urge the Pakistani government and Iraqi people to help find my father," said Nazia, 21, tears rolling down her face.

The two, an engineer and a driver believed to be working for the Kuwaiti-based al-Tamimi company, disappeared on Friday as they drove to Baghdad.

The Philippines withdrew its troops from Iraq this month to spare the life of a Filipino hostage. It joined Spain, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras as countries that have pulled out of what once was a 34-nation US-led coalition.

Washington and interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi have urged governments not to bow to kidnappers' demands.

A group calling itself al Qaeda's arm in Europe said Italy and Australia, both major contributors of troops to US-led forces in Iraq, must pull out of the country or face attacks.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he was not familiar with the group but was taking the threat seriously.

"It reminds us that we have to be absolutely determined in the face of the threats of terrorists to make sure that we don't give in to those threats," he told Australian television.

Iraq's fledgling forces killed 13 suspected guerrillas in heavy clashes near Baghdad in one of the fiercest battles they have faced since Allawi's government took over from US-led occupying authorities on June 28.

Police and National Guard members were attacked by mortar fire and rocket-propelled grenades as they provided security to US forces conducting raids near the town of Buhriz, 55km north of Baghdad, the US military said.

US warplanes patrolled the skies and US artillery opened fire to suppress the guerrillas' mortar positions, said Major Neal O'Brien of the US 1st Infantry Division.

No Iraqi security personnel or US troops were killed.

Reuters television pictures showed buildings blackened by fire and pockmarked with bullet and artillery round holes.

Inside one house, a family wept over the open coffin of a dead man.

Outside, a number of armed men, their faces wrapped in checked scarves and wearing white robes, fired weapons into the air and shouted "Down with Allawi, down with America".

Allawi's government is heavily reliant on some 160,000 mostly US foreign troops for security while it builds up its own forces.

- REUTERS


Herald Feature: Iraq