IRAQ: 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 was made yesterday in a statement posted on an Islamist website. The Nepalis were kidnapped last month when they entered Iraq to work as cooks and cleaners for a Jordanian firm.
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 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.
Ansar al-Sunna, one of several militant groups to emerge following the ousting of Saddam Hussein, said it had kidnapped the Nepalis because they were co-operating with US 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 US troops and discouraged investment in a cash-starved economy. Besides the Nepalis, about a dozen foreign hostages have been killed. In Nepal, the government condemned the reported killings and urged the international community to take action.
"This barbarian act of terrorism to kill innocent civilians without asking for any conditions for their release is against the minimum behaviour of human civilisation," the Nepali foreign ministry said. - (Reuters)