Relatives and Muslim leaders appealed to Iraqi militants on Thursday to release three Kenyan truck drivers they took hostage, saying the men are good Muslims who went to Iraq to earn a living for their families.
A militant group calling itself The Holders of the Black Banners announced on Wednesday it has taken the Kenyans, three Indians and an Egyptian hostage. The group said it will behead a captive every 72 hours beginning on Saturday night if their countries do not announce their intentions to withdraw troops and citizens from Iraq.
”We plea to those who are holding our brother to release him without any condition because he is a family man who went to make an honest living out there,” said Faiz Khamis, younger brother to the kidnapped Ibrahim Khamis.
”He is a good Muslim trying to support his wife and four children and the kidnappers should consider that,” the younger Khamis said by telephone from Kenya’s Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. ”Our brother bore no ill-will to the people of Iraq.”
Umi Mohamed said she recognised her kidnapped cousin from newspaper photographs and television images of the victims that appeared in the Kenyan media on Thursday morning.
The elder brother of hostage Jalal Awadh said he is also a good Muslim and family man. Ahmed Kamal joined Muslim and political leaders calling for the hostages’ immediate release.
”We are stressing to the kidnappers that they are holding innocent men and they should not do injustice to these men,” said Mohamed Dori, secretary general of Kenya’s Council of Muslim Clerics.
”They need to understand that Muslims in Kenya strongly opposed, and still opposes, the invasion of Iraq by the United States,” Dori said by telephone from Mombasa. ”We also oppose US policies in the region because they caused the mess out there.”
India, Kenya and Egypt are not part of the 160 000-member US-led military coalition in Iraq. However, interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi appealed last week to India and Egypt to send in troops.
The militant group on Wednesday warned that all companies and individuals dealing with Americans in Iraq will face similar treatment as Americans.
More than 60 foreigners have been taken hostage in recent months in Iraq, where thousands of foreigners toil as contract workers for coalition forces, in crucial reconstruction jobs or as truck drivers hauling cargo for private companies.
The six foreigners threatened on Wednesday are truck drivers working for a Kuwaiti company, the militants said. The group warned that every Kuwaiti company dealing with Americans ”will be dealt with as an American”.
In Kuwait, Rana Abu-Zaineh, labour planning manager of the Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company (KGL), confirmed that seven employees from the company were kidnapped in Iraq.
”The most important thing for KGL is that the seven people arrive here safely and talk to their relatives. Whatever that takes,” she said. She would not elaborate.
She said the company has no offices in Iraq but it will transport goods for any company working in Kuwait. — Sapa-AP