Iraqi Kidnappers Extend Deadline for French Hostages

[adios]

From the article: Thousands of people took to France's streets to demonstrate on Monday and Foreign Minister Michel Barnier visited Egypt as part of a mission to rally support in Iraq and the region.

He made an impassioned plea to the Islamic Army in Iraq to free the journalists.

The militant group, which last week said it had killed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, on Saturday gave the French government 48 hours to rescind the headscarf ban, without saying what would happen to the two Frenchmen if it failed to comply.

Will the French government back down?

The crisis stunned France, which campaigned against the 2003 invasion of Iraq and so had considered itself relatively safe from militant attack. France also opposed the 1990-2003 economic sanctions on Iraq.

Perhaps this is as good example of any in what we're dealing with in Iraq. These savages who kidnapped these journalists don't care at all what France did in the past.

Protests were held across Paris against the kidnappings while French diplomats explored possible solutions.


"Their kidnapping is incomprehensible to all those who know that France ... is a land of tolerance and of respect for others," Barnier said, before meeting Arab League chief Amr Moussa and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

I don't understand quite why the French government would be surprised. They're not dealing with reasonable people. Sad day, sad situation. Although the French have basically have been opposed to U.S. interests it's a tragedy nonetheless. Hopefully the hostages will be released unharmed and it will be interesting to see if France concedes.

Kidnappers Extend Deadline for French Hostages (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=2&u=/nm/20040830/ts_nm/iraq_france_headscarf_dc_17)

Kidnappers Extend Deadline for French Hostages

27 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Heba Kandil

DUBAI (Reuters) - Militants holding two French journalists hostage in Iraq (news - web sites) gave France another 24 hours on Monday to agree to their demands and scrap a ban on Muslim headscarves in schools, Al Jazeera reported.

The Arabic TV station showed a tape of the two journalists urging the French people to hold protests to persuade their government to retract the headscarf law or they might be killed.

The kidnappers gave the French government one more day to overturn the ban after a previous 48-hour deadline expired on Monday, Al Jazeera said, quoting a written statement.

France has scrambled to save Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, both of whom spoke on the video tape.

"I call on President (Jacques) Chirac to ... retract the veil ban immediately and I call on French people to protest the veil ban. It is a wrong and unjust law and we may die at any time," Chesnot said, according to Al Jazeera's translation into Arabic.


Thousands of people took to France's streets to demonstrate on Monday and Foreign Minister Michel Barnier visited Egypt as part of a mission to rally support in Iraq and the region.


He made an impassioned plea to the Islamic Army in Iraq to free the journalists.


The militant group, which last week said it had killed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, on Saturday gave the French government 48 hours to rescind the headscarf ban, without saying what would happen to the two Frenchmen if it failed to comply.


"We will continue, come what may, to follow all contacts ... with civil and religious personalities to explain the reality of the French republic ... and obtain the release of these people," Barnier said in Cairo.


Iraqi Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim groups and Islamic groups outside Iraq urged the kidnappers to release the two, noting France's opposition to the U.S.-led Iraq war and saying journalists were not combatants.


The crisis stunned France, which campaigned against the 2003 invasion of Iraq and so had considered itself relatively safe from militant attack. France also opposed the 1990-2003 economic sanctions on Iraq.


Chesnot, of Radio France Internationale, and Malbrunot, who writes for the dailies Le Figaro and Ouest France, disappeared on Aug. 20 on their way from Baghdad to Najaf, the day after Baldoni was seized.


PARIS PROTESTS


Protests were held across Paris against the kidnappings while French diplomats explored possible solutions.


"Their kidnapping is incomprehensible to all those who know that France ... is a land of tolerance and of respect for others," Barnier said, before meeting Arab League chief Amr Moussa and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.


"I urge everyone who has power, or has the capabilities, to set the journalists free as soon as possible so that the situation does not become more complicated," Moussa said.


Aboul Gheit also called for the hostages to be released.





Many Muslim women in headscarves joined French protests for their freedom. Some 200 people took to the streets of eastern Strasbourg and about 3,000 demonstrated in Paris.

"The hostage-taking risks making public opinion in France turn against women and girls who wear headscarves," one of the veiled protesters in Paris said in front of the headquarters of Radio France Internationale, Chesnot's employer.

Barnier said Foreign Ministry Secretary-General Hubert Colin de Verdiere arrived in Baghdad on Monday for crisis talks. Barnier is expected to visit Amman and Qatar, but not Iraq.

Islamic groups in Iraq sympathized with the French.

"France's position toward Iraq is good. But we also are against kidnapping all journalists," said Sheikh Abdel Sattar Abdel Jabbar, a top official in the Muslim Clerics Association. "We call on the kidnappers to release them immediately."

SYMPATHY FOR THE FRENCH

Outside Iraq, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab world's largest Islamist organization, and the Federation of Arab Journalists spoke out against the kidnapping.

Cairo's prestigious Sunni seat of learning, al-Azhar, and Lebanon's top Shi'ite cleric Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah also condemned the action.

Al Jazeera, which has regularly broadcast similar tapes of hostages, said all kidnapped journalists should be released.

"This clearly means a call for the immediate release of the French journalists held hostage," Al Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout said.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder offered a word of caution about efforts to free them, saying: "The more it's dealt with in public, the less chance there will be to resolve the crisis."

French critics and defenders of the ban on headscarves in schools united in support of the law on Monday, pledging to stand firm against the kidnappers. France passed the law in March in reaction to the growing influence of Islamist activists and tensions between Muslim and Jewish youths in schools. The law also bans Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses.

Leaders of France's five-million strong Muslim community have denied any link with the militant Islamic Army in Iraq.

Fouad Alaoui, secretary-general of an Islamic group that had previously urged schoolgirls to defy the ban, recommended on Monday they refrain from flouting the law. The French government said there was no question of the ban being revoked. (Additional reporting by Amil Khan, Joelle Diderich, Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Mariam Karouny)

[Boris]

Why do you think the French will back down? I know we like to make jokes about France but the reality is that they have been very effective in dealing with terrorists. If you look at the number of terror attacks on French soil I think it compares quite favorably with other Western European countries and the U.S.

[ QUOTE ]
Although the French have basically have been opposed to U.S. interests it's a tragedy nonetheless.

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting comment. How has France been opposed to U.S. interests?

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]

Interesting comment. How has France been opposed to U.S. interests?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm guessing you didn't watch CSPAN during the UN debates before the war.

Or payed attention to the UN scandal, or listened to Chirac for the last 4 years, or ....

Normally I put hard data and post links, but I'm just going to tell you to google.


France has neither winter, nor summer, nor morals. France is miserable because it is filled with Frenchmen, and Frenchmen are miserable because they live in France.

-Mark Twain


"What do you expect from a culture and a nation that exerted more of its national will fighting against Disney World and Big Macs than against the Nazis?"
- Dennis Miller

Normally I don't like to generalize large groups of people like this, but given their long history, I just can't help it.

[Cyrus]

"How has France been opposed to U.S. interests?" France is miserable because it is filled with Frenchmen, and Frenchmen are miserable because they live in France.

Your comment is all too revealing of the depth of your ignorance. You ask us to google? How about you yahoo?

You ask us to examine the French policy towards the US "for the last 4 years"? Vraiment?! Would you happen to know if, as we speak, French soldiers are fighting side by side with American soldiers in Afghanistan and getting maimed and killed in the process? They are, as a matter of fact. (And pardon if, by the by, the French and personally Chirac have proven to be 100% correct in what they were saying and warning y'all before Dubya plunged in head first into the stupid quagmire that is Iraq.)

But I'm sure none of this registers in your selective, neo-con mind.

[nothumb]

If I was worried about getting attacked by terrorists (which I'm not) I would rather live in France or Canada than the US.

BTW I am sick of hearing people called 'savages' and other similar names as if they had no agenda, as if their only goal were brutality and murder, as if they had no strategic goals or consciousness. Yes, I think they are abhorrent, ignorant, provincial idiots. Yes, I would gladly shoot such a person if he stepped into my life and I were the kind of person who owned a gun. But simply calling them 'savages' won't simplify the problem. I hope you have just picked this up from listening to too much Michael Savage and Bill O'Reilly.

NT

EDIT: And by the way, thousands of Americans didn't demonstrate when Daniel Pearl got his throat slit. We've never displayed this kind of involvement. Do you think that has anything to do with it?

[wacki]

Oui Vraiment!

Ok, your right about the french fighting in afghanistan.
I forgot about that, and they do deserve respect for that. But seriously did you not watch CSPAN during the UN negotiations? It was unreal.

I never would of imagined people could act like that. It got so bad that the french ambassador, I forget his name, would come out and talk in English and then only answer questions in french from french reporters.
And no, Chirac and the French haven't been proven 100% correct. They denied the Iraq's trip to Niger for yellowcake, which the 9/11 commission and the brits found to be true.
The French also bypassed the food for oil program and created a billion dollar blackmarket against UN sanctions.
There are plenty of other instances where they blatantly screwed us, and the UN, in the back.
Last I heard, Chirac is still doing it with UN troop deployments.
And maybe, I know it's far fetched, but just maybe, if France hadn't given Saddam 7 Billion dollars, and violated UN sanctions, Saddam wouldn't have the cash to fund his regime we wouldn't be in this mess.

It's almost 3 AM and I still have a 100 lines of code to chug out, and a meeting at 9 AM. I'm tired and lazy right now, so I will only post this semi-respectable link:

Maxim on France (http://www.maximonline.com/the_ride/articles/article_5274.html)

I know there are good people in that country. The troops in Afghanistan prove it. But considering their history, recent and for the last 100 years, they have alot of explaining to do.


P.S. That quote was Mark Twain, not me.

But since you liked the last one so much, heres one more:

"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. All you do is leave behind a lot of noisy baggage."

Want to guess who said it? Google it! Yahoo has a lousy spider, good translater, but lousy spider.

[nothumb]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm tired and lazy right now, so I will only post this semi-respectable link:


[/ QUOTE ]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HA.

NT

And that quote is that General guy, Norman Schwartzkof or whatever.

[wacki]

"I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me." ---General George S. Patton


"As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure"

---Jacques Chirac, President of France

"As far as France is concerned, you're right."

---Rush Limbaugh

~~~

"The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is sitting in Paris sipping coffee." ---Regis Philbin

~~~

"I don't know why people are surprised that France won't help us get Saddam out of Iraq.

After all, France wouldn't help us get the Germans out of France!" ---Jay Leno

~~~

War without France would be like... ...World War II

~~~

What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up? The Army.

~~~

Q: Why are all the boulevards in France lined with trees?
A: Because the Germans LOVE to march in the shade.

~~~

"We can count on the French to be there when they need us."

~~~

"The last time the French asked for 'more proof' it came marching into Paris under a German flag." ---David Letterman

[wacki]

Here's another quote.

"Who unties France from the tree and helps her find her panties every time the Germans are done with her?
America, that’s who. Our reward?
A nonstop stream of lip-sneering, cigarette-waving, mime-walking-a-dog snobbery. Time to return le favor."

[adios]

.....

[adios]

[ QUOTE ]
BTW I am sick of hearing people called 'savages' and other similar names as if they had no agenda, as if their only goal were brutality and murder, as if they had no strategic goals or consciousness.

[/ QUOTE ]

So people who murder innocent civilians that have an agenda are not savages but people who murder innocent civiliams that don't have an agenda are savages. So those responsible for beheading Nick Berg aren't savages because they have an agenda? That's insanity and the product of a sick mind. It doesn't make a bit of difference.

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, I think they are abhorrent, ignorant, provincial idiots. Yes, I would gladly shoot such a person if he stepped into my life and I were the kind of person who owned a gun.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow that's tough talk. That probably scares the crap out of them. Better hope they don't have a gun if you don't. /images/graemlins/smile.gif.

[ QUOTE ]
But simply calling them 'savages' won't simplify the problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

What problem? Murder of innocent civilians?

[ QUOTE ]
I hope you have just picked this up from listening to too much Michael Savage and Bill O'Reilly.

[/ QUOTE ]


Never listen to Savage, Rarely O'Reilly. If they state that terrorist acts perpetrated against innocent civiliams are the work of savages irregardless of their agenda I agree with them. My moral compass states that wanton murder of innocent civilians is savagery.

[ QUOTE ]
And by the way, thousands of Americans didn't demonstrate when Daniel Pearl got his throat slit.

[/ QUOTE ]

So what?

[ QUOTE ]
We've never displayed this kind of involvement.

[/ QUOTE ]

Kind of involvment in what? Anti terrorism?

[ QUOTE ]
Do you think that has anything to do with it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Anything to do with what?

[adios]

[ QUOTE ]
Why do you think the French will back down?

[/ QUOTE ]

I posed a question. If the question is why do I think they might back down then I think they may decide that the law is not worth it. I don't think they will back down, I don't see how they can.

[ QUOTE ]
I know we like to make jokes about France but the reality is that they have been very effective in dealing with terrorists.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah I agree. I think the French are a lot tougher than many in the U.S. give them credit for being.


[ QUOTE ]
If you look at the number of terror attacks on French soil I think it compares quite favorably with other Western European countries and the U.S.

[/ QUOTE ]

Duly noted.

[ QUOTE ]
Interesting comment. How has France been opposed to U.S. interests?

[/ QUOTE ]

Mostly I base it off of the recent go round regarding the sticking points of deploying NATO troops to train Iraqis. Also my take is that there is friction in trade policies between the EU and the U.S. that indicates problems between the two countries.

[wacki]

Just to be fair, I agree with just about everything that adios has said. And I probably shouldn't of posted those quotes. That was a bit much.

But at the same time I have very legit reasons to be angry.

[nicky g]

""The last time the French asked for 'more proof' it came marching into Paris under a German flag." ---David Letterman "

It's funny, I seem to remember France having declared war on the Nazis a good two years before the US did, and without having been attacked first. Must be my liberal European education.

[nicky g]

There is no way they'll back down on the (misguided and offensive) headscarf law because of this.

[jokerswild]

You have a moral compass? Now that's the funniest thing that I've heard all year.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
""The last time the French asked for 'more proof' it came marching into Paris under a German flag." ---David Letterman "

It's funny, I seem to remember France having declared war on the Nazis a good two years before the US did, and without having been attacked first. Must be my liberal European education.

[/ QUOTE ]

I already appologized for posting the quotes. I got angry
and can't delete them. And no Letterman isn't an authority
on history. He's a late night talk show host if you didn't
know. That was a joke. I am a bit suprised you didn't know that. Do they not have Letterman over there?

BTW, I studied in Europe as well, but only for a semester.
One of my brothers is going back to Europe tomorrow, and has
already spent over a year in Europe getting an education,
and my other brother is going back for his 3rd extended
stay. All of us have paid for our own education too,
which isn't easy.

I sure you don't think so, but I like to consider hardcore
liberal on domestic issues. I just apply the teachings of
Machiavelli, Lee Harris, and Thomas Friedman (a liberal) and
the lessons of history when it comes to foreign politics.


As for the French, you have to admit the going against UN
resolutions and creating a multi-billion dollar black market
that undermined something that was supposed to be used to
weaken Saddam wasn't the most respectable thing they could
of done.

[Cyrus]

"You're right about the French fighting in Afghanistan."

It is hilarious that you admit you overlooked something crucial in your assumptions, yet you continue without changing one bit of your conclusions! Carry on. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

"During the UN negotiations ... the French ambassador [sic] would come out and talk in English and then only answer questions in French from French reporters."

Frnech diplomats and ministers will always use their own language as much as possible. They prefer French over English, big deal. And you are, again, incorrect about those press conferences. The French have responded to all journalists. On occasion, questions from French reporters got preferential treatment because ...those ministers are politicians too! And their politicking is done in France.

But it is amusing that you see some deep and sinister meaning into this practice. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

"And no, Chirac and the French haven't been proven 100% correct. They denied the Iraq's trip to Niger for yellowcake, which the 9/11 commission and the Brits found to be true."

You have a lot of catching up to do! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

The Report of the Congressional Commission on 9/11 (which I have read in full and whose text can be found here (http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/US/resources/9.11.report/911Report.pdf) for your perusal...) did not idendify anything linking the Niger fiasco with Iraqi efforts to get WMDs. It is quite explicit in this regard.

The Report of Lord Butler, which recapped and evaluated all British intelligence findings (and which I have, also, read in full and can be found here (http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Politics/documents/2004/07/14/butler.pdf) for your perusal...) is also categorically denying any link between Niger and WMDs.

You are being, as you proudly claim, and as the French agree with you, a con, on this issue. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

"There are plenty of other instances where [the French] blatantly screwed [the United States] and the UN in the back."

It is interesting that you offer no examples of this. Quite telling, in fact.

"France [gave] Saddam 7 Billion dollars, and violated UN sanctions."

More preposterous claims. Once more, a blatant display of ignorance. Again, no specifics. You must think you are the key speaker in the Republican Convention. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

"Considering their history, recent and for the last 100 years, [the French] have alot of explaining to do."

We agree! /images/graemlins/cool.gif

But not to the Americans! The French have a lot of explaining to do to the people of Vietnam and Algeria and Congo. But to America? What for?? Jerry Lewis?

[MMMMMM]

"And I probably shouldn't of posted those quotes. That was a bit much."

Those quotes were by far the best part of this thread. Thanks Wacki.

[wacki]

I know what I saw at the UN on CSPAN. If you saw it too, then you would be able to tell me the joke that Negroponte's
aid made.

WashTimes (http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040321-101405-2593r.htm)
for your perusal...
Canada Free Press: Oil for food scandal - the french connection part 1 of 2 (http://www.primetimecrime.com/Recent/Investigative/French%20Connection%20oil%20for%20food.htm)
for your perusal...

Will post more preposterous claims later for your perusal..., have a meeting to go to.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
"And I probably shouldn't of posted those quotes. That was a bit much."

Those quotes were by far the best part of this thread. Thanks Wacki.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your welcome.

[MMMMMM]

"BTW I am sick of hearing people called 'savages' and other similar names as if they had no agenda, as if their only goal were brutality and murder, as if they had no strategic goals or consciousness."


Islamist terrorists (including of course al-Qaeda) have the strategic goals of spreading Shar'ia, destroying the West (which they see as evil), and eventually re-establishing the Caliphate. They have no compunctions whatsoever about using murder and terror to achieve these goals. The headscarf-issue/kidnapping and the other recent kidnappings/demands/beheadings are just a minor tip of this iceberg and are not their true strategic goals; those matters represent only minor tactical objectives.

"Yes, I think they are abhorrent, ignorant, provincial idiots."

They are united in their determination to forcibly push Islam into what they see as its rightful place; which place is, in their minds, that of dominance over all other religions and political systems.

"Yes, I would gladly shoot such a person if he stepped into my life and I were the kind of person who owned a gun."

OK, whatever.

"But simply calling them 'savages' won't simplify the problem. I hope you have just picked this up from listening to too much Michael Savage and Bill O'Reilly."

They are much worse than savages; they are savage fanatics.

[adios]

Hey I remember reading something about the Nazi's occupying the Rhineland in clear violation of Treaty of Versailles in 1936. I remember reading something about this being a clear blow to French security and the French, with a vastly superior military force at the time, basically doing nothing. You wrote:

[ QUOTE ]
It's funny, I seem to remember France having declared war on the Nazis a good two years before the US did, and without having been attacked first. Must be my liberal European education.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is there a point here?

[nicky g]

"Is there a point here? "

Yes; Letterman's quote is absurd. Arguing that they (and all the allies) should not have let the Nazis break various Versailles commitments is one thing; claiming that the French stood idly by until the Nazis showed up in Paris is ridiculous.

[adios]

Yes it's ridiculous and I think there is too much France bashing in the U.S. The French have proved their mettle in my mind not that it matters very much what I think.

[adios]

.............

[ThaSaltCracka]

here is a quote from a recent article (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5756110/)

With the crisis deepening, Islamic militant group Hamas joined a chorus of groups, including French Muslims opposed to the ban, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and aides to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in urging freedom for the journalists.
The kidnappings stunned France which staunchly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, objected to pre-war sanctions against Baghdad and which is now intent on gaining support from its strong ties with the Arab world in securing the men's release.


I am just curious about something. If France has extensive connections and influence in the Arab world, why haven't they used that influence to try to get all the hostages released and to end the violence in Iraq?

BTW, the headline from the article:
12 Nepali hostages reportedly slain in Iraq

It looks like France is still just looking out for themselves.

[nothumb]

Hi M and adios as well,

My point in the 'savages' quibble is that most people chalk up the actions of these fools to mere brutality, savagery, etc. As I said in my initial post, I hope you are merely repeating an oft-used word and not taking on this line of thinking as well. Clearly from your replies you understand that these people have an agenda - this was pretty much my whole point.

The other day I heard a guy I work with say something to the effect of, "What can you do? They been fighting over there since... since they had sand!" This is a fairly common summary of the situation from everyday Americans - and I live in a supposedly liberal area.

NT

[adios]

Is this an act by savages?

Iraqi Militants Reportedly Kill 12 Nepali Hostages (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040831/wl_nm/iraq_dc_15)

Iraqi Militants Reportedly Kill 12 Nepali Hostages

Tue Aug 31, 3:39 PM ET Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Dean Yates

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - A militant Iraqi group said it had killed 12 Nepali hostages and showed pictures of one being beheaded and others being shot dead, the worst mass killing of captives since a wave of kidnappings erupted in April.

The announcement of the killings, made in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site Tuesday, came as France intensified its efforts to save two French reporters held hostage by a separate group as a deadline set by their captors neared.


The Nepalis were kidnapped earlier this month when they entered Iraq (news - web sites) to work as cooks and cleaners for a Jordanian firm.


In a small Nepali village near terraced paddy fields about 15 miles from the capital Kathmandu, the father of one of the hostages wept inconsolably after hearing the news.


"Oh Lord, why have you kept me alive," said Jit Bahadur, father of hostage Ramesh Kadhka who was lured to Iraq by the hope of earning 40,000 rupees ($555) a month -- six times what he would have made from his old job working in a restaurant.


Bahadur's wife fainted when the family received a call at a public telephone from a reporter saying their son was dead.


The killing of men from a tiny country that has had nothing to do with the invasion or occupation of Iraq will send shockwaves through foreign companies doing business here.


"We have carried out the sentence of God against 12 Nepalis who came from their country to fight the Muslims and to serve the Jews and the Christians ... believing in Buddha as their God," said the statement by the military committee of the Army of Ansar al-Sunna.


The group posted a series of photographs showing the killing as well as a video. The recording showed two masked men, one in camouflage, holding down a hostage. One of the men then used a knife to behead the hostage and then hold his head aloft.


The video then showed a group of hostages lying face down and being shot by a man using an automatic rifle. It then showed bodies splattered with blood and bullet wounds.


Nepal urged the international community to take action against those responsible. "This barbarian act of terrorism to kill innocent civilians without asking for any conditions for their release is against the minimum behavior of human civilization," the Nepali foreign ministry said.


NEW SCARE TACTICS


Ansar al-Sunna said it had kidnapped the Nepalis because they were cooperating with U.S. troops.


Scores of nationals from more than two dozen countries have been kidnapped since April, when guerrillas embarked on new tactics to force foreign troops and firms to leave Iraq.


The tactic has scared away some foreign companies, disrupted supplies to U.S. troops and discouraged investment.


Besides the Nepalis, about a dozen foreign hostages have been killed, some of them beheaded. Around 20 hostages are still being held, many of them truck drivers from poor countries seeking good money by plying Iraq's dangerous highways.


France mounted a major diplomatic effort to save the two French reporters as a deadline neared for Paris to scrap a ban on Muslim headscarves in schools as the kidnappers demanded.





Foreign Minister Michel Barnier visited Jordan and Egypt to drum up support for appeals to the militants holding Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, shown on Arab television on Monday fearing for their lives.

"I am renewing my solemn call for their release," said President Jacques Chirac, in Russia to meet anti-Iraq-war allies Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. "Everything will be done to secure their release."

24 HOURS MORE FOR FRANCE

Islamic militants Hamas joined a chorus of groups including Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) and aides to anti-U.S. Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr urging freedom for the journalists.

France staunchly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

In a statement sent to Al Jazeera Monday evening, the kidnappers gave France 24 hours to repeal its ban on headscarves in state schools, part of a broader law that also bars Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses.

A senior Arab League official said Tuesday evening that according to information from some of the league's friends in Iraq, the deadline had been extended 48 hours, not 24 hours as previously reported.

The Islamic Army in Iraq, a little known group that kidnapped the two journalists, did not specify the fate of the two men if there was no repeal, but the group claimed responsibility for the death of an Italian journalist last week. (Additional reporting by Gopal Sharma in Nepal, Miral Fahmy in Dubai, Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Michael Georgy in Baghdad, Jon Boyle and Kerstin Gehmlich in Paris and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman)

[adios]

Is this an act of savages?

Two Bus Blasts in Southern Israel Kill 16 (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=3&u=/ap/20040831/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians)

Two Bus Blasts in Southern Israel Kill 16

1 minute ago

By STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer

BEERSHEBA, Israel - Palestinian suicide bombers blew up two buses in this Israeli desert city Tuesday, killing 16 passengers and wounding more than 80 in an attack that ended a six-month lull in violence.

The buses exploded into flames just seconds apart and about 100 yards away from each other in the center of Beersheba — the deadliest suicide strike in nearly a year.


Israel had attributed the lull to its separation barrier, arrest sweeps and widespread network of informers.


The Hamas militant group claimed responsibility, issuing a leaflet in Hebron — the closest Palestinian city to Beersheba — saying it was avenging Israel's assassinations of two of its leaders earlier this year.


Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) met with his security advisers to plan a response, expected to include a military operation in Hebron. Just hours before the attack, Sharon presented his hardline Likud Party with the most detailed timetable yet for Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip (news - web sites).


Despite the bombings, Sharon promised to push forward with the Gaza pullout, while insisting Israel would keep fighting terrorism "with all its might."


"This (the attack) has no connection to disengagement," he said, referring to his program to separate Israel from the Palestinians.


In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) condemned the bombings and offered condolences to Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, and State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said Hamas must be put out of business.


White House spokesman Scott McClellan said President Bush (news - web sites) had been briefed. "There's simply no justification for the killing of innocent civilians," McClellan said.


Israeli officials said the bombings proved the need for the barrier now under construction between Israel and the West Bank. The section between Hebron and Beersheba has not been built.


"We should go ahead speedily now and finish construction of this fence," government spokesman Avi Pazner told The Associated Press.


The barrier, which Israel says is necessary to keep out suicide bombers, has been widely condemned internationally because of the hardships it imposes on Palestinians.


Palestinian analyst Hani al-Masri agreed with the Israeli assessment of the lull in suicide attacks. He told AP that it resulted from Israel's assassination of Hamas leaders and the difficulties of infiltrating posed by the barrier.


"But now, the military operations (attacks) are a way for Hamas to increase its popularity among Palestinians," he said, noting that until Tuesday, the Islamic group had not carried out its promise to avenge Israel's killing of its founder and his successor.


It had been nearly six months since Israelis last experienced the scene of charred buses, mangled bodies and screaming sirens that played out in Beersheba on Tuesday. The last suicide bombing in Israel took place on March 14, when 11 people were killed at the port of Ashdod.


Tuesday's attack was the deadliest since a female suicide bomber killed 21 people nearly a year ago in the northern city of Haifa — an attack that prompted Israel to assassinate Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi.


Israel's rescue service said 30 of the wounded in Tuesday's attack were in serious condition. Police said the death toll of 16 did not include the bombers.





The two buses lay smoldering in the street, their windows blown out, roofs buckled outward, interiors gutted by flames. Forensic workers picked up body parts, including a woman's hand with a silver ring still attached.

One of the bus drivers, Yaakov Cohen, opened his doors and ordered passengers off after hearing the first blast, apparently saving a number of lives.

"I don't know why I thought to open the doors," Cohen told reporters, still dazed, "but at least some of the people were able to escape."

In Hebron, the Israeli army surrounded the homes of the two suspected bombers, Ahmed Qawasmeh and Nasim Jaabari, and questioned their relatives.

In Gaza, thousands of Hamas supports took to the streets to celebrate, with Rantisi's widow, Rasha, calling the attack an "heroic operation" and saying her husband's soul is "happy in heaven."

Palestinian officials condemned the attack, however, and called for an immediate cease-fire and resumption of peace talks.

"The Palestinian interest requires a stop to harming all civilians so as not give Israel pretext to continue its aggression against our people," Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) said in a statement.

In Washington, the State Department brushed aside Arafat's comments and said Hamas must be put out of business. Department spokesman Richard Boucher said action, not words, was needed.

Secretary of State Colin Powell condemned the bombings in a telephone call to Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.

In a development clearly related to the bombings, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman canceled a visit to the West Bank, set for Wednesday. Suleiman has been leading a yearlong Egyptian effort to negotiate an end to Palestinian attacks.

The past year has seen a sharp reduction in the number of bombings in Israel — from 18 in 2003 that killed 167 civilians to four this year that killed 42, including Tuesday's toll.

Israel has attributed the slowdown to its success in fighting militants and the West Bank barrier, not to a lack of effort by armed Palestinian groups.

Israel has arrested or killed dozens of militants in recent months, maintains dozens of roadblocks in the West Bank and placed security guards near busy bus stops in Israeli cities. It also operates an efficient intelligence network in the Palestinian areas.

But Israeli officials Tuesday repeatedly cited the barrier, which the world court at The Hague (news - web sites), Netherlands, recently ruled to be illegal, as the No. 1 reason for the lull in violence.

"What we have learned in the past six months ... is that in the place where there is a fence there is no terror, and where there is no fence there is terror," said Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi.

Several Israeli officials have privately complained that the barrier project has been unnecessarily politicized, saying Israel should have built it closer to the country's pre-1967 frontier. That, they say, would have saved lives by heading off legal challenges that have repeatedly delayed construction of the 425-mile structure.

[adios]

How about this? All reported in the news today.

Suicide Bomber Kills 10 at Moscow Subway (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=4&u=/ap/20040831/ap_on_re_eu/russia_explosion)

Suicide Bomber Kills 10 at Moscow Subway

5 minutes ago

By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW - A woman strapped with explosives blew herself up outside a busy Moscow subway station Tuesday night, killing at least 10 people and wounding more than 50 in the second terrorist attack to hit Russia in a week.

Seven days earlier, almost to the hour, two Russian jetliners crashed within minutes of each other in what officials determined were terrorist bombings. All 90 people aboard were killed, and the investigation has focused on two Chechen women believed to have been passengers.


A militant Muslim web site published a statement late Tuesday claiming responsibility for the subway bombing on behalf of the "Islambouli Brigades," a group that also claimed it caused the jetliner crashes with suicide teams in retribution for Russia's war with Islamic rebels in Chechnya (news - web sites). The veracity of neither claim could be confirmed.


The statement said Tuesday's bombing was a blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) "who slaughtered Muslims time and again." Putin has firmly refused to negotiate with the rebels in predominantly Muslim Chechnya, saying they must be wiped out.


Several female suicide bombers allegedly connected with the rebels have caused carnage in Moscow and other Russian cities in a series of attacks in recent years.


Mayor Yuri Luzhkov told reporters near the Rizhskaya subway stop in northern Moscow that the bomber was walking toward the station shortly after 8 p.m. but turned around when she saw two police officers.


She "decided to destroy herself in a crowd of people" in a busy area between the subway station and a nearby department store-supermarket complex, Luzhkov said, adding that the bomb was packed with bolts and pieces of metal.


"There was a desire to cause maximum damage," he said.


A spokesman for the Federal Security Service, Sergei Ignatchenko, told NTV television that the casualty toll had risen to 10 dead and 51 wounded, of whom 49 were hospitalized. Many of the injured were believed to be seriously wounded, and the death toll was expected to rise. It was not immediately clear if the number of dead included the bomber.


A white car was set afire, and shattered windows and bloodied people lay on the asphalt in front of the subway station.


A woman, apparently distraught with panic, pushed away a man who repeatedly reached out to help her. A man lying on his stomach moved his arm weakly as people crowded around him.


"There was a powerful blast and then a smaller one. I thought my roof would come off," said 30-year-old Sergei Pyslaru, who was driving on a nearby street.


Alexei Borodin, 29, said he was walking with his mother when he heard "a very powerful bang."


"Something flew past my head — I don't know what it was. There were people lying in the square," he said. "There were pieces of bodies. We were walking through pieces of people."


Chechen secessionists have been blamed for a series of attacks in Moscow and other parts of Russia the past several years, killing nearly 370 people with bombs in just the past 21 months. In the most recent bombings, 41 people died in a rush-hour explosion on the Moscow subway in February, and a female suicide bomber blew herself up outside a hotel adjacent to Red Square and killed five other people in December.


Many of the Chechen female suicide bombers are believed to be so-called "black widows," who have lost husbands or male relatives in the fighting that has gripped the southern region Chechnya over most of the past decade.


Chechens on Sunday elected a new Kremlin-backed president in the republic, a move Moscow hopes will bring some stability to the region.





Alu Alkhanov, Chechnya's top police official, won with 74 percent of the vote, election officials said, after a campaign in which the six other candidates rarely were shown on television and a leading opponent was kept off the ballot by pro-Moscow local officials.

Alkhanov will replace Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated May 9 when a bomb ripped through a stadium in the Chechen capital, Grozny, during a Victory Day ceremony. A Chechen warlord claimed responsibility for the attac, which killed as many as 23 other people.

[Cyrus]

"I know what I saw at the UN on CSPAN. If you saw it too, then you would be able to tell me the joke that Negroponte's aid [sic] made."

Perhaps you need some aid with your memory. Or with that part inside your cranium that deals with the interpretation of facts. (Which I already tried to explain for you.) French diplomats will speak mostly French, even when inconvenient to do so. And this has nothing to do with ...the French obstructing US efforts in the UN. You are being delusional.

Go watch some shopping channel for a day, to clear up those synapses.

" Link to WashTimes - for your perusal..."

You don't have to give me a link to the Moonie rag to support that position. Now I gotta wash the computer screen! That there was a lot of corruption involved in the Oil For Food program has been established, if somewhat exaggerated. So what??

To suggest that, on the basis of some officials being corrupt, the European Union, led by France and Germany, would not support the American unilateral actioon against Iraq is quite preposterous. Nations act on interests, and usually, if you must know, their own interests, rather than some mandarins' interests. When the two sets of interests collide in western democracies, the former usually win out.

The French (and the Germans) (and the others) opposed the Americans re: Iraq for other strategic reasons. If you ever snap out of that GOP-induced stupor, I just might enter a dialogue with ya to elaborate. Alright, Talleyrand?

"Have a meeting to go to."

Don't mention the war.