IRAQ: Lined up in a dark room, seven foreign truck-drivers pleaded for their lives in a video tape filmed by militants holding them hostage in Iraq - the tension broken only when an Egyptian told his mother not to worry.
Nervous and sweating, the three Indians, three Kenyans and the Egyptian gave their names and nationalities on the tape, given to foreign news agencies yesterday.
At the end of the tape - and after he had asked not to be beheaded - a smiling Mohammed Ali Sanad from Egypt tried to reassure his family. "Mum, if you see me on TV don't get worried, we are with the best people, the Iraqis. They are feeding us, but this is routine and must happen so they can stop infidels from entering Iraq," he said.
"You too, my kids, Ahmed and Ali, don't worry. I am coming at the end of the month as I promised you, but if we die then I say thank God." A hitherto unknown Iraqi group calling itself the "Black Banners" has threatened to kill the drivers unless the Kuwaiti firm they work for pulls out of Iraq. The group made the threat in a tape aired by Al Arabiya television on Wednesday. The captors have vowed to behead one hostage every three days.
The kidnappings are the latest in a spate of hostage-taking in Iraq, mainly designed to put pressure on foreign governments and companies to pull out of the country or stay away. India, Kenya and Egypt are not part of the US-led coalition.
One of the Kenyan men said: "I've been sent to Iraq, which is not good. Iraq is a dangerous zone. I want to tell everyone not to come to Iraq to come to help the Americans. Americans are not good."
Meanwhile, a decapitated corpse was found by police in northern Iraq yesterday and Bulgaria said it was investigating whether the body was one of its citizens seized by militants loyal to al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Foreign Ministry in Sofia said another headless body found in the same area earlier this month had been identified as that of 30-year-old Bulgarian truck driver Georgi Lazov. Lazov and fellow Bulgarian Ivailo Kepov were seized as they delivered cars to Mosul.