Cairo - Kidnappers holding two Germans in Iraq threatened
Saturday to kill their captives unless Germany withdraws its troops
from Afghanistan within ten days.
One of the hostages, a 61-year-old woman, made a tearful plea for
help to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a video posted by the
abductors on an Islamic website.
'We're Germans as well,' sobbed the woman, who is married to an
Iraqi. 'They'll kill us otherwise,' she added.
The two hostages were seized on February 6 by armed men who burst
into their family home in Baghdad.
The woman was wearing a loosely tied headdress in the video.
Crouching next to her was her son, who is in his twenties.
One of the kidnappers read out a message on behalf of a group
calling itself the Brigade of the Arrows of Righteousness.
'We Muslims are one large nation,' he said. The Muslims in
Afghanistan are therefore just as close as the Muslims in Iraq, he
added.
At the beginning of the video, the abductors showed the passports
of the two hostages on which their names were clearly visible.
The German government declined to comment on the kidnappers'
demand for a pullout from Afghanistan were Germany has 3,000 troops
serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF).
A spokeswoman for the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin said a
crisis team set up after the kidnapping was examining the latest
information.
The government has in the past imposed a news blackout on the
abduction so as not to compromise efforts to obtain the release of
the two hostages.
Media reports said the woman was married to an Iraqi and had lived
in Iraq for decades.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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