A militant Islamist group in Iraq has threatened in a videotape showing two purported German hostages to execute them if the Berlin government fails to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
The Kataeb Siham al-Haq (Righteous Arrows Battalions) said in the videotape posted on Saturday on an Islamist website: “We give the German government 10 days from the date of this statement to announce and start the withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan.”
“We have warned them. Otherwise, you will not even see one corpse for these two agents,” said one of three masked gunmen, who appeared standing behind the purported hostages.
A German passport seen in the video footage showed what appeared to be the surname of the female hostage as Kadhim, Geb Krause, while her first names were Hannflore Marianne, born in Teltow in 1945.
The blonde woman cried along with her dark-haired son who sat on the floor next to her while she made a lengthy appeal in German.
A written Arabic translation of her statement said that she was calling on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to save her life and that of her son by pulling out troops from Afghanistan.
“I am under threat. These people want to kill my son in front of me and then kill me if German troops do not withdraw from Afghanistan,” the translation said.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier confirmed on February 12 that two German citizens had been missing in Iraq for a week and may have been abducted.
The Berlin daily Tagesspiegel, citing security sources, reported at the time that the victims were a woman in her 60s, who is married to an Iraqi doctor, and their son who is in his 20s.
This is the third abduction of Germans in Iraq since the United States-led war was launched in 2003.
Germany vehemently opposed the war, but it does have 3 000 troops in the relatively stable north of Afghanistan, where it commands the International Security Assistance Force. — AFP