August 30, 2002
By Miral Fahmy
DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iraqi militant group said it had killed 12 Nepali hostages and showed pictures on an Islamist Web site on Tuesday of one of them being beheaded.
"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 Buddhah as their God," said the statement by the military committee of the Army of Ansar al-Sunna.
The group also posted a series of photographs showing the killing of the hostages 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 in a dirt pitch being gunned down by a man using an automatic rifle. It then showed bodies splattered with blood and with bullet wounds in the head and back.
"Our brothers, do not feel any mercy or pity for these nasty and spiteful people," the statement said.
"They have left their homes and their countries and crossed thousands of kilometers to work for the American Crusader forces and to support their war against Islam and the mujahideen."
The Nepalis were taken hostage earlier this month as they entered Iraq to work as cooks and cleaners for a Jordanian company. The Ansar al-Sunna said it had kidnapped them because they were cooperating with U.S. troops in Iraq.
"America has exploited and used all it has to fight Islam and its people under what it calls the war on terrorism, which is a spiteful Crusader war against Muslims," the statement said.
"This is why, and in order to thwart the enemies of God, we have carried out this sentence (punishment)," it added.
Militants have waged a campaign of kidnapping in Iraq aimed at driving out companies, individuals and troops supporting U.S. forces and the new Iraqi interim government.
The latest foreigners to be taken hostage are two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, who were seized by the Islamic Army in Iraq this month.
The group demanded that France revoke its ban on Muslim headscarves in state schools, and gave the government until Tuesday night to comply.
It did not say what it would do if France refused but the two journalists, in a video tape aired on Al Jazeera television, appealed to their government to meet the group's demands or else they would be killed.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6112494