'Pull out of Iraq or we kill hostages,' Japan told

By PATRICK COCKBURN in Baghdad and DAVID MCNEILL in Tokyo

Iraqi insurgents threatened to burn alive three Japanese hostages - two journalists and an aid worker - in three days unless the Japanese government agreed to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

"Three of your sons have fallen into our hands," said a statement from the kidnappers.

"We offer you two choices: Either pull out your forces, or we will burn them alive. We give you three days starting the day this tape is broadcast."

A video shown on Arab television showed the Japanese captives, two men and a woman, blindfolded and crouched on the floor of a concrete room with an iron door. Four masked men dressed in black stood behind them holding automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The gunmen compelled the three Japanese to lie on the floor and pointed knives and swords at their chests and throats. They then showed their passports.

The documents identified the hostages as 32-year-old Soichiro Koriyama, a freelance journalist carrying a press card for a Japanese weekly magazine, Nahoko Takato, a 34-year-old children's volunteer worker and 18-year-old Noriaki Imai, who had gone to Iraq to study the effects of depleted uranium shells on the local population.

The Japanese government demanded the release of the hostages and said that it had no plans to withdraw its 530 troops based in Samawah in southern Iraq, part of a contingent of 1,100 men being sent to take part in reconstruction work.

The leading spokesman for the Japanese government, Yasuo Fukuda, said: "There is no need for us to leave. We are there to bring humanitarian aid to the Iraqi people."

The sight of the hostages on Japanese TV will pile pressure on Junichiro Koizumi, who sent 550 ground troops to Iraq despite much opposition and, his critics say, in breach of Japan's constitution.

Mr Koizumi's government got round the constitution's ban on foreign military engagement by arguing that the troops were on a humanitarian mission to bring water and other supplies to Iraq.

The kidnapping is in keeping with past attacks on members of the US-led coalition who are deemed soft targets and were not expecting, when they met US requests for help a year ago, to be subjected to such savage retaliation. Italy and Spain have both been singled out for punishment over the past year.

Eight South Koreans, believed to be Christian ministers, were also detained by armed men west of Baghdad who then released one of their captives, a Foreign Ministry official in Seoul said. It is not clear who is holding them.

They left for Iraq on 5 April when the road between Baghdad and Jordan was cut as US Marines besieged Fallujah and fought gun battles with rebels in Ramadi.

South Korea has 460 doctors and military engineers based in Nasariyah and they are to be replaced by 3,600 troops being sent to Iraqi Kurdistan.

The guerrillas may have discovered, as happened in Lebanon in the 1980s, that kidnapping foreigners, particularly journalists, puts intense pressure on their governments.

It is also true that Sunni and Shia militants in Iraq are often highly suspicious of foreigners and journalists of any description, including Iraqis.

Gary Teeley, a 37-year-old British civilian contractor, has also been kidnapped in Nassariyah where there has been heavy fighting this week between the Army of the Mehdi, loyal to Sadr and Italian troops. Mr Teeley is said to have been working at a US airbase.

Unfortunately, the Coalition Provisional Authority chose to hire private companies to provide security. This has blurred the distinction between foreign civilians and military in Iraq. The latest kidnappings will make it increasingly difficult for foreign companies, using their own personnel, to play a role in the Iraqi economy.

It will also make it next to impossible for the US to find any other countries to join its coalition.

- INDEPENDENT

Herald Feature: Iraq