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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CYBERKEN who wrote (562235)	4/9/2004 12:18:32 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769668

Read it carefully, GI Joe. BTW, how many wars have you fought in.............that's what I thought! ********************************************************* Hostages given three days to live April 10, 2004 REBELS yesterday threatened to burn alive three captured Japanese civilians as Iraq descended into bloody turmoil. Wave of kidnappings: fanatics were still holding three Japanese cilivian hostages last night, threatening to burn them alive unless Tokyo pulls its troops out of Iraq. The rebels released a video showing the prisoners screaming in terror as swords, knives and guns were held against and pointed at their throats. The harrowing scenes brought a chilling dimension to the conflict. Exactly a year since American troops pulled down Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad, intense fighting between the US-led coalition and insurgents was raging across much of the country. Last night, rebels attacked a US supply convoy, which was carrying fuel, west of Baghdad, killing at least nine people, witnesses said. A photographer said he saw bodies burning inside the vehicles. He said the convoy included US military vehicles and fuel tankers. Up to 400 Iraqis and 40 marines have died in the uprising, which started last weekend, but the wave of kidnappings has brought enormous pressure to bear on the coalition forces. Besides the Japanese, seven South Koreans, a Briton, two Palestinians with Israeli identity cards, and a Canadian were reported to have been taken hostage. The Koreans were later freed. A previously unknown group calling itself the Mujahidin Brigades showed the Japanese hostages in a videotape aired by the Al-Jazeera satellite channel and threatened to kill the three, including a woman, unless Tokyo withdrew its troops within three days. But Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi vowed not to pull troops out despite a tearful appeal from relatives of the hostages. "We must not yield to terrorists' foul threats," he said. Mr Koizumi said his government would "do our utmost so that they will be released immediately." Tearful families of the hostages pleaded for the Government to withdraw Japan's 550 non-combat troops from the southern Iraqi city of Samawa. Naoko Imai, mother of 18-year-old anti-war hostage Noriaki Imai, said: "I don't think they can be saved if the Government does not consider pulling the troops out. There are only two days left." Stock prices fell, the yen weakened and Japanese analysts said mishandling of the crisis could bring down the Government. Imai is the youngest of the hostages, graduating from high school last month. He is being held with aid worker Nahoko Takato, 34, who previously worked at an Indian orphanage established by Mother Teresa, and Soichiro Koriyama, 32, a former soldier, who is now a photo-journalist. As the kidnappings commanded international attention, US-led troops retook the eastern town of Kut and suspended operations in Fallujah, which had suffered most this week with up to 300 killed, with 400 wounded. The US governor in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said marines had pulled back in Fallujah to allow humanitarian access and to try to begin talks with insurgents. About 10 bodies remained in the streets of the town, west of Baghdad, after heavy fighting on Thursday night. This week's bloodshed, engulfing towns across the previously peaceful Shiite south, as well as the stubborn bastions of Sunni insurgency in central Iraq, has rocked US confidence in stabilising and rebuilding the country. But US Secretary of State Colin Powell angrily rejected comparisons with the Vietnam War, saying Iraq was not a "swamp that is going to devour" America. Kut residents said US soldiers controlled the town centre and US military convoys rolled down roads to the area, 170km southeast of Baghdad. Posters of rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr fluttered on a green sculpture symbolising a new Iraq erected on the plinth where Saddam's statue once stood. Sadr was thought to be in Najaf among his followers, who launched the uprising in Shiite areas across Iraq on Monday. The US military re ported six more combat deaths in Iraq on Wednesday and Thursday, bringing to 449 the number of US troops killed in action. news.com.au