Posted on 08/20/2004 3:27:02 AM PDT by kattracks
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A top aide to firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who appealed to kidnappers to free a Western journalist, said Friday they had promised to release him. The pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera reported Thursday that a militant group calling itself the Martyrs Brigade had abducted New York journalist Micah Garen and threatened to kill him within 48 hours unless U.S. pulled out of the wear-shattered city of Najaf.Sheik Aws al-Khafaji, a top aide to al-Sadr whose rebel Mahdi army has been fighting coalition forces in Najaf for two weeks, said he had spoken Friday to the kidnappers, who told him they would release Garen later Friday.
"The kidnappers have put the journalist in a safe place," al-Khafaji said from the southern city of Nasiriyah, where Garen and his Iraqi translator, Amir Doushi, were seized while walking through a market on Aug. 13. There was no word on Doushi's fate.
Garen was working on a story about the looting of archaeological sites in Iraq (news - web sites) when he was abducted, said his fiancee, Marie-Helene Carleton.
In calling for Garen's release, al-Khafaji said the militia was against kidnapping, "especially this journalist who rendered Nasiriyah great service."
U.S. troops have clashed with Shiite militants in Najaf for more than two weeks in Najaf. U.S. officials have repeatedly said that they would not give into the demands of kidnappers, and any U.S. withdrawal is highly unlikely.
Another official in al-Sadr's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said al-Sadr officials had contacted the kidnappers. But he said Garen would only be released "after the crisis in Najaf is defused."
British journalist James Brandon was kidnapped and similarly threatened with death last week, but freed the next day after a public appeal by al-Sadr's aides, including al-Khafaji.
Thousands of U.S. troops are deployed in Najaf, whose revered Imam Ali Shrine is the holiest in Iraq for Shiite Muslims. Any U.S. withdrawal from the city is highly unlikely.
Also Thursday, a Turkish company announced it was withdrawing its employees from Iraq in an effort to save the life of a worker taken hostage by Iraqi militants. Turkish media said the kidnappers have threatened to kill the hostage if the company didn't leave within three days.
Garen's sister Eva appealed to the kidnappers in a phone interview with Al-Jazeera on Thursday, saying that she hoped they would free her brother after hearing the request from al-Sadr's aides.
Garen worked for Four Corners media, identified on its Web site as a "documentary organization working in still photography, video and print media."
He has taken photographs as a stringer for The Associated Press and had a story published in The New York Times. His photographs also have appeared in U.S. News & World Report.
The International Federation of Journalists on Thursday condemned Garen's abduction and appealed for any group that has influence with his kidnappers to work for his release.
"This grotesque ... performance of intimidation is a terrible reminder of the risks all journalists face," said Aidan White, general secretary of the Brussels, Belgium-based umbrella group representing journalists worldwide.
The IFJ said the kidnappings in Iraq and other shooting deaths of journalists there showed the need for intensified international action to protect media members.
Will they get UN recognition soon enough?
I am suspicious. This was debunked some time ago. Time to do a Google search on this "journalist".
"We were making a documentary film on the country's cultural history and the archaeological sites at risk inside the war zones, in the hope that they might soon be afforded some protection," she explained from New York City, where she resides. Micah Garen went missing on 13 August 2004, but for Ms. Marie-Hélène Carleton, kidnapping is the most likely explanation.Uh huh...
He seems also to be a "French-American journalist". Some articles:
Here's the summary: Looting is still going on, but not nearly as bad as right after the invasion. But it's still a really, really bad thing.
He's kind of amateurish, a Johnny One Note, but despite the places in which he's published, his biased articles don't have the firebreathing property that I expect.
I don't know how he explains the early reports of looting which were almost wholly false and wildly overexaggerated.
Why would they want to harm their enablers?
Good news. I hope both he and the intepreter are freed soon.
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