IRAQ: A video surfaced on the internet yesterday showing three drivers employed by a Jordanian trucking company being shot dead, execution-style, by a militant Islamic group in Iraq.
One of Iraq's most feared insurgent groups, Ansar al-Sunnah, posted the video on an Islamic website known as a clearing house for militant movements' material. The three men were shown being shot in the back of the head in a desert-like area.
The identities and nationalities of the dead men were unclear due to the poor quality of the tape, but their accents appeared to be Iraqi.
"We don't see any difference between them and the Americans," a statement attached to the video said. "On the contrary, they work night and day in aiding the Americans to find the houses and locations of the mujahideen."
One of the men interviewed on the tape before being shot claimed he worked for the Jordan-based Shaheen Company contracted by US forces to supply Iraqi police academies south of Baghdad.
"I am filled with remorse," one of the men said during a taped interrogation. "This company is contracted by American troops." The driver claimed he was not forced to confess.
"This is the fate of every agent," a voice said on the tape after the executions were shown.
Ansar al-Sunnah is one of Iraq's most violent insurgent groups. It has claimed responsibility for attacking US and Iraqi forces, including a December suicide bombing killing 22 people, mostly US soldiers, in a military mess tent in Mosul.
Meanwhile, French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin told parliament yesterday his government had "reassuring" news about a French reporter kidnapped in Iraq in January.
"Following the appeal we launched for the kidnappers to contact our country's official services, the French official services today have reassuring news," Mr Raffarin told the National Assembly.
"We now have contacts which seem to have stabilised, allowing us to have some hope."
Journalist Florence Aubenas was taken hostage with her Iraqi driver in Baghdad on January 5th. Little is known about her fate since then.
France had hoped its opposition to the US-led war in Iraq would help it secure her release, as it did in the case of two French journalists freed in December after being held hostage for four months by Iraqi militants.
But concern is growing in France that its firm line on Syria after last month's killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri may hinder its efforts. Syria has denied any involvement in Hariri's killing.