IRAQ: Three Turkish workers in Iraq are threatened with beheading during the NATO summit in Istanbul if Turkey does not break off all commercial relations with Iraq by tomorrow. Lara Marlowe reports from Baghdad
A Pakistani driver was also kidnapped last night by an unidentified group of gunmen who are threatening to behead him within three days unless Iraqi prisoners are released, Arabiya television reported.
On the tape, the Pakistani man urged President Pervez Musharraf to shut down Pakistan's embassy in Iraq.
The Turkish government has said there can be no question of "negotiation with terrorists", and there is no reason to believe the three will escape the horrible fate that befell four other foreigners in Iraq and Saudi Arabia since April.
It is becoming a sadly familiar image: foreign hostages staring into the television camera with masked gunmen and an Islamic banner in the background. In Iraq, an Italian security guard in April, an American communications technician in May and a Korean translator last week were shown in similar videotapes, followed shortly after by unspeakable films of their decapitation.
I recognised the man in the middle in the videotape which Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group sent to Al-Jazeera television on Saturday night. He was on my plane from Amman to Baghdad on Thursday. Despite the spiral landing and take-off to avoid surface-to-air missiles, the flight is still safer than travelling by highway from Jordan.
The Turkish man sat beside me on the Iraqi Airways bus from the terminal to the parking lot several miles away. (No cars are allowed to approach the terminal building). He looked like a westerner, and asked me and other passenger repeatedly where he could pick up a taxi. He clutched a single sheet of paper with instructions in Turkish. We tried to explain to him that it was better to be met by someone he knew and trusted. But he spoke not a word of English or Arabic. Two days later, he was a hostage.
Thousands of Turks work as truck drivers and contractors for the US military in Iraq. A dozen or so have been kidnapped since April, but were released after promising not to work again for occupation forces.
Though they have not yet claimed responsibility, al-Zarqawi's group was also accused of the double car-bombing that killed 23 people and wounded 58 others in Hilla, 100km south of Baghdad, on Saturday night. The bombs went off simultaneously - a al-Zarqawi trademark - at 8.45 p.m. in a busy shopping street.
Dr Mohamed Dhia Bayram, the director of Hilla hospital, stressed that all of the victims were civilians.
"There were children and women, young and old. Not one of them wore a uniform."
Hilla is a Shia Muslim city. In February US officials circulated a 17-page letter which they attributed to al-Zarkawi inciting Sunni Muslims to attack the Shia. Al-Zarkawi is blamed for bombings at Shia shrines in Baghdad and Kerbala which claimed 180 lives on March 3rd.
The car bombs in Hilla exploded near the former Saddam mosque, which has been used by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) as a "centre for democracy training". The head of the CPA, Mr Paul Bremer, visited the mosque yesterday, saying that the perpetrators were "enemies of Iraq, not enemies of the coalition".
Mr Bremer will step down on Wednesday when the US will "transfer sovereignty" to an interim president and prime minister. In a farewell speech to his Iraqi colleagues, the US administrator said their first priority would be to create "a secure and stable Iraq, in order for people to get on with their lives".
The interim prime minister, Mr Ayad Allawi, caused a stir when he said that violence could lead him to postpone a general election to be held by the end of January 2005. Mr Allawi later said elections would take place on schedule, but the impression of inconsistency lingered.
Elections are especially important to the Shia majority, many of whom agreed to support the interim government because they believe a fair poll will bring them to power.
Two children were killed yesterday when two mortar shells exploded at sunset on the bank of the Tigris River in central Baghdad, opposite the presidential palace where the Americans are ensconced. The victims had just been swimming.
Yesterday, a US C-130 aircraft was hit by small arms fire after takeoff from Baghdad airport. One person was wounded and later died, the US military said.
Several explosions also went off in central Baghdad as guerrillas aimed mortars at the "Green Zone" compound housing the US-led administration's headquarters.