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Western Hostages Plead for Their Lives in Iraqi Insurgent Video
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ShareApril 06, 2007 10:29 AM
A tearful middle-aged German woman and her adult son are seen pleading for their lives, in a new video posted on the Internet this week by Iraqi insurgents. The insurgents have threatened to execute the pair within 10 days if the German government does not meet their demands.
Krause and her son were kidnapped from her home in Baghdad on Feb. 6. Krause is married to an Iraqi physician and works for the Austrian embassy, and her son works for the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, according to German media reports.
The group, calling itself Siham al-Haq or Arrows of Righteousness Brigades, warned that the hostages would be killed in 10 days if Germany did not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, extending a deadline set in an earlier video.
Watch an excerpt of the Iraqi insurgent video.
Very little is known about the group or its motivations. Laura Mansfield, an Arabic language specialist who monitors terrorist Web sites, says it's rare to see Iraqi insurgent groups make demands regarding other countries. "It's bizarre," said Mansfield. "Germany doesn't have troops in Iraq."
Germany does have nearly 3,000 troops with NATO-led forces in northern Afghanistan. German officials have condemned the kidnapping. "Naturally, given the situation, we are greatly concerned," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel last month. "We know what our commitment to the civilian rebuilding means to the Afghan government, and we should not be blackmailed by people who are terrorists."
Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage.
Krause and her son are among hundreds of foreigners who have been kidnapped in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
In one recent kidnapping, five security contractors -- four Americans and one Austrian -- were abducted in southern Iraq in November by a group called the National Islamic Resistance in Iraq. The hostages were last seen in a video release in early January. Their fate remains unknown.
April 6, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (14)
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Foreigners have no right to be in the land of the two rivers. Everyone should stay in their own country. Die infidels!
Posted by: Erica Zachus | Apr 6, 2007 11:00:03 AM
At the on set, we had Al Queada.
Now we seem to be facing a Baskin-Robbins, 32 flavor, new insurgency group of the week.
Is this someone's idea of stemming the growth and winning the war on terrorism or are we, as many Americans suggest simply stirring the fires of discontent in the middle east and making matters worse for everyone?
Ask these two innocent people if things are getting better.
Get all the troops home.
This mess has taken longer than our involvement in WWII.
It's well beyond the time to do the right thing.
Posted by: Zach | Apr 6, 2007 2:51:44 PM
Who kidnaps a middle-aged woman? Cowards. Plain and simple.
Posted by: spellcheck | Apr 6, 2007 6:18:03 PM
What are they doing in Iraq anyway. I mean it shouldn't be on anybodies holiday destination list.
And it is not as if the situation in Iraq is unpublicised.
Posted by: Chris | Apr 7, 2007 7:03:39 AM
Chancellor Merkel is commited to continuing to aide reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. Good for her. She's absolutely correct in saying that Germany will not be blackmailed.
On the other hand, incidents like this are simply the cost of doing business...
Posted by: Jazz | Apr 7, 2007 9:27:31 AM
For that matter, who would drop bombs on one!
Posted by: Zach | Apr 7, 2007 3:28:50 PM
Hey Erica
Do you think this threat is just now emerging because of our presence there? Educate yourself before you start throwing your "bring the troops home now" rhetoric around. Find the movie "Obsession" on the web to see exactly what it is we are fighting against. If you don't think kidnapping, roadside bombs, and all other manner of terrorism tactics can't touch us here, you are sadly mistaken and embarrassingly ill-informed. I would agree that a change in tactics and staffing levels for our military is in order as well greatly increased multi-lateral diplomatic efforts involving all affected countries (and the list just gets bigger every day), but bringing the troops home would help the enemy. And pardon me for saying so, but the enemy is clearly radical islam! Wake up America before it is your son or daughter who is the victim of an IED while riding in his BMW on Main St. some morning.
Posted by: Common Sense | Apr 8, 2007 10:02:16 AM
The Bush Administration has lost absolutely any sense of command and/or control of Iraq. A group of Iraqi 8th graders could do a better job of managing the violence. We need to withdraw and let them government themselves. This is what they want, and this is what deserve.
Posted by: Eric | Apr 8, 2007 8:45:49 PM
The Brits are withdrawing their troops from Iraq.
Doesn't this mean that the "terrorists" will be following them home?
Evidently, the Brits don't seem to think so.
Why should we?
Posted by: Zach | Apr 8, 2007 11:27:53 PM
>.
Common Sense, please tell me exactly what its we are fighting against? Terrorist? Did our troops find it? Osama bin Laden is in Iraq?
>
Do you think, how many young man (soldier) have died during this war? They die because they wanna our son or daughter riding BMW with his girlfriend or boyfriend in secure?
Posted by: suwarlovewar | Apr 9, 2007 5:05:47 AM
Typical.
Another group of innocent people will be killed and no muslim cleric or anybody will show outrage. But if you draw a cartoon of Mohammad the world is on the brink of destruction.
Either get out or blow 'em all up to hell. They obviously don't offer this world anything positive technologically or spiritually.
Posted by: Joel | Apr 12, 2007 11:37:28 AM
This only gets better all the time.
Now we have self professed human value equivocators who weigh the worthiness of others in having what it takes to be granted the right to exist on planet earth.
Let me ask you, Joel, might we ourselves not fit the qualifications for extermination according to someone elses zealous and equally mistaken life value measurement system?
Yep! And both of your attitudes are exactly why we have these problems.
Posted by: Zach | Apr 14, 2007 3:27:40 PM
Is this what a Christian President
does? What must the world think?How can he sleep at night?
Posted by: Reinier Battenberg | Apr 16, 2007 4:05:41 AM
i realize it's fair for the islamic extremist to kill innocents, use women and children as shields, drape themselves in garb that covers up their faces, explode themselves for profit.. and i'm so "sorry" my country is there to try to present them with a better way of governing themselves.. as opposed to theocracy...
i'm also sorry that we have become a country full of people who respond to the world as isolationist utopians..
Posted by: tom | Apr 17, 2007 3:47:59 PM
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