Posted on 07/25/2004 9:41:01 AM PDT by NCjim
Two Pakistani citizens were reported kidnapped in Iraq, ratcheting up tension after abductors threatened to start beheading seven captives unless their Kuwait-based trucking company cease operations in Iraq.
The kidnappers of the seven truckers seized last week had originally set a deadline for Saturday, at which time they would start killing them. But a 48-hour extension was announced by the "Holders of the Black Banners" group on Al-Jazeera late Friday.
Iraq's interim government said Sunday that it had begun investigating the disappearance of two Pakistanis disappearance.
Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan told AFP in Islamabad that the two latest hostages identified as engineer Raja Azad and truck-driver Sajjad Naeem had gone missing on Friday.
In Kuwait, security sources said Kuwaiti police had found documents detailing an apparent plot to kill interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi during a visit to the neighboring country next week.
The documents were discovered "during raids over the past dew days in search of suspects", the source told AFP, requesting anonymity. He said the plotters intended to carry out their attack on August 2, the 14th anniversary of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.
Meanwhile in renewed fighting in Iraq, US-backed Iraqi forces killed 13 insurgents in a shootout Sunday near Buhruz northeast of Baghdad, the US military said.
A US spokesman said fighters opened fire on Iraqi security forces as they were providing security for the US Army's 1st Infantry Division during a raid in a farming area.
"Iraqi security forces pursued the anti-Iraqi forces into town while being attacked by sporadic small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades," said Major Neal O'Brien.
He said US forces provided air and ground support to Iraqi forces from outside Buhruz as they battled the insurgents, who "fired mortars indiscriminately" into Buhruz.
Late last month a Pakistani driver Amjad Hafeez was abducted by a group of Iraqi insurgents who threatened to behead him. However he was freed him after a week in response to appeals by his mother and the Pakistan government.
Those held in Iraq include the number three in the Egyptian embassy, Mohamed Mamdouh Hilmi Kotbwas, who was abducted Friday in central Baghdad after he went out to attend evening prayers.
He was apparently seized in reaction to what his captors, self-identified as the Lions of Allah, described as Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif's offer of his country's security expertise to Iraq.
Iraq's Allawi has pressed Egypt not to cave in to the kidnappers. Earlier, the Philippines government withdrew troops from Iraq earlier than planned in exchange for the freedom of a Filipino hostage.
The group that captured the seven truck drivers last week -- three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian -- demanded that the Kuwaiti transport company for which they work leave Iraq by 1600 on Monday, or it would behead one of the captives every 24 hours.
The wife of one of the three Indian truckers begged his captors to show mercy. Calling the insurgent hostage takers " her brothers", Promilla Devi, 32, said she was willing to offer her own life to save that of her husband, Tilak Raj, sole breadwinner for her and their three children.
"He travelled to Kuwait to make a small nest for our children and today I am willing to give my life if that will bring him back," she said in the remote village of Dharampur, India.
He had said he wanted to earn enough money to pay for a wedding dowry for their two daughters, aged five and 11, and fund a proper education for their two-year-old son.
"And how I weep today that I let my dear husband convince me. Punish me but you are my brothers and I forgive you for what you have done, but please let my husband come back," she said.
"I will pray for you, your families for their long life, but please do not harm my husband."
Kidnapping....Hezbollah's M.O.
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