Jordan Times
Thursday, August 5, 2004
4 kidnapped citizens
freed
By Khalid Dalal and Rami Abdelrahman with agency dispatches
Four out of the seven citizens abducted by Iraqi armed groups late last month
were freed yesterday and the government announced they will arrive in Amman
early today.
"The four hostages were released [from the Group
of Death] with the help of some Iraqi tribes and the Muslim Ulema Committee
[religious scholars] in the town of Fallujah," said Foreign Ministry
spokesperson Ali Ayed.
Ahmad Abu Jaafar, Mohammad Khleifat, Ahmad Sunukrot and Khalid Massoud were
taken to the Fallujah-based Jordanian military hospital, where they underwent a
medical check-up and doctors confirmed that they were all in good health,
according to Ayed.
He explained that since the seven Jordanians were taken hostage last month, the
government has been in direct contact with its diplomatic mission in Baghdad and
with notables in the turbulent city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, to help
release the hostages.
"Now, the government is trying to secure the freedom of the remaining three
citizens," Ayed said, but added that it was still unclear if one of the
hostages, Adel Ubeidallah, has been abducted or is missing somewhere in Iraq.
Two Jordanian truck drivers were confirmed to be still in captivity, Fayez Saad
Adwan and Ahmad Salameh Hassan. They were kidnapped by a group calling itself
the Mujahedeen (Holy Warriors) in Al Qaem area, near the Iraqi border with
Syria.
Adwan and Hassan worked for a local private catering company, whose owner
announced late last month that he has pulled his firm out of Iraq in an attempt
to secure the two men's release.
Ayed confirmed yesterday to Agence France-Presse that “no concessions” were made
to the kidnappers, whom he described as "bandits."
Last month, a Jordanian businessman, Marwan Zuheir Al Rusan, was killed in the
northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The reason behind his death remained unknown.
Mosul violence kills at least 16
In Mosul, meanwhile, at least 14 people were killed, including a brother of the
head of a militant group, in fierce clashes Wednesday between insurgents and
police.
The fighting broke out at around noon (0800 GMT) on the west bank of the Tigris
River in Mosul as loud explosions and heavy gunfire ricocheted across this
northern city.
“Khalid Sido, the brother of Mullah Krekar, was killed during the clashes in the
Yarmouk neighbourhood,” said provincial government spokesman Hazem Dalawi.
Dalawi told reporters that US troops were also involved in the clashes, but a
military spokesman was unable to confirm that American soldiers had been in
action Wednesday in Mosul.
Washington has raised concerns about Krekar's alleged ties to terrorism, even
though Norwegian prosecutors dropped terror charges against the exiled Kurd.
Krekar, whose real name is thought to be Fateh Najmeddin Faraj, founded Ansar Al
Islam in December 2001, but insists he has not led the group — allegedly linked
to Al Qaeda terror network — since May 2002.
Mosul's hospitals said 14 bodies, including those of two women, were brought in
along with 52 injured, mostly civilians.
The regional governorate imposed a curfew from 3:00pm until Thursday morning in
the city, which is home to 1.75 million people mainly Sunni Arabs, with Kurdish,
Christian and Turkmen minorities. At least five bridges were cut off as gunmen
took up positions in the southwest and police deployed on the bridges, in the
worst Mosul fighting since April when insurgents attacked the provincial
government's headquarters.
Earlier, a man and a woman were killed and two people wounded when a roadside
bomb exploded in the path of a US military convoy in Mosul, police said.
In Turkey, delighted relatives celebrated after Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul
confirmed that two Turkish truck drivers had been released in Iraq.
Al Jazeera satellite news channel earlier aired a videotape in which the Tawhid
wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) group said the two were freed after their
employers “agreed to stop sending trucks to American forces in Iraq.”
The men had been held by Tawhid militants loyal to Iraq's alleged Al Qaeda chief
operative, Abu Mussab Zarqawi, who have been blamed for a string of kidnappings
and grisly killings. The Turkish catering company Bilintur, which provides
services to the US army, announced Tuesday it was withdrawing its remaining
workers from Iraq. The announcement was made a day after a video on Islamist
websites showed the execution of a Turkish man identified as Bilintur employee
Murat Yuce.