Iraq Group Says Kills Two Italian Hostages -Web(2 Italian women)

[RedEarth]

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Islamist group in Iraq (news - web sites) has said it killed two female Italian hostages in a statement posted on an Internet site not often used by Iraqi militants.

The group, calling itself the Jihad Organization, said it had killed the women after Italy did not heed its call to withdraw its forces from Iraq. A group with a similar name, the Islamic Jihad Organization, said on September 12 that it would kill the hostages in 24 hours if Italian troops did not leave Iraq.





http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20040922/ts_nm/iraq_italy_hostages_dc

[AlCzervik]

1. oh my God, this is so sad, i've been looking everyday

for news on them and no one had anything on them. i fucking hate this war.

[Career Prole]

2. shit shit SHIT!! N-stinkin'-T!

[Leilani]

3. I hope this is not true.

They were there to help the Iraqi people.

[Wright Patman]

8. I think we have 'helped' enough

and they are telling us to just get the f**k out of their country.

[paulk]

12. is it your opinion that persons who would do this sort of thing

speak for the Iraqi people, then?

[ECH1969]

14. Most of the people that do this aren't even Iraqi

Zarqawi is from Jordan. Remember even Sadr doesn't believe in taking hostages, and everytime one was taken by some of his fighters, he would call them and get the hostages released.

[Aidoneus]

15. that is a good point

Consider also the anti-occupation Sunni 'Association of Muslim Scholars', that often acts as a mediating body for the release of others.

Sayyid Muqtada has, as you say, been able to use his considerable influence in freeing others.

I have it on good terms that the Mujahideen Shura Council of al-Fallujah, one centre of the most effective resistance to the occupyers in the central front, frowns upon the kidnapping activites--but certain among them, that is, it is a little less simple than plainly that. They are on very bad terms with the improperly named "Jamaat at-Tawhid wa al-Jihad" for their notorious activities, contrary to crusader propaganda.

[Jazzgirl]

19. This is horrible but....I doubt Zarqawi is even in Iraq.

The US is the only one that keeps saying Zarqawi is there but Iraqi's say they've never seen him or heard anything about him. This is sad though but it won't end until we get out.

[paulk]

20. that is more or less my point

and also - that even if Iraqis are involved - it's not right to imply that the majority of Iraqi's would approve of this, or that these people speak for Iraq.

[Leilani]

21. These 2 women were not there as part of an army

or there as occupiers.

Would you say the same thing about Peace Corps Volunteers?

Sometimes I am amazed at the inhumanity in war & by ignorant people.

[Zhade]

27. I agree, Wright, but these were not invaders.

They were there to aid the Iraqi people - which is why I'm suspicious that this, if true, was not done by the Iraqi resistance.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

38. What did they, or anyone else, think they were going to do...

....in the middle of an increasingly more chaotic war zone? They wouldn't have been there at all if it hadn't been for the numerous outright lies used by the NeoCons to justify invading Iraq.

While I certainly feel sorry for the two women and their families, what is it they failed to understand about the situation that made them think they would be safe??

And please tell me how their deaths are any more important than the deaths of over a thousand American troops and an unknown number of American "civilian contractors".

Tell me how their deaths are more important than the deaths of all of the other nationalities making up the sadly misnamed "coalition of the willing".

Tell me also how their deaths are more important than the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians to include men, women, and children who obviously made the mistake of being born in an oil-rich country coveted by the all-powerful NeoCons. IMHO, we would have HELPED the Iraqi people a HECK of a lot more if we had stayed the heck OUT of their country in the first place.

[Flagg]

4. Noooooooo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bastards

sons of bitches

[AIJ Alom]

5. God. I hope this news is wrong.

These women were mother Teresas.

[hlthe2b]

9. that's certainly my impression..... I pray this is false...

If true, I pray something good can come from their sacrifice and that they find the peace they deserve.

[Trajan]

6. NO amount of hurt ....

justifies this depravity .....

The world is full of sick fucks ..... everywhere ....

[geek tragedy]

7. I was in Italy when they were kidnapped--this is huge news.

Regardless of the morality of Bush's invasion, the people who do this kind of thing are sick, disgusting murderers and, yes, terrorists.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

10. La Repubblica and Il Corriere Della Sera

are both reporting it, although it is still unconfirmed. If you want to take a look:

La Repubblica www.repubblica.it
Il Corriere della Sera www.corriere.it

[guntherconcept]

11. Seemed suspicious at the time...

If this post at Commmon Dreams is accurate. I heard the author saying the same thing on Democracy now, basically that it had all the earmarks of an undercover police operation.

link

Salient points;

1. "Nothing about this kidnapping fits the pattern of other abductions"

2. "Most are opportunistic attacks on treacherous stretches of road. Torretta and her colleagues were coldly hunted down in their home."

3. "...while mujahideen in Iraq scrupulously hide their identities, making sure to wrap their faces in scarves, these kidnappers were bare-faced and clean-shaven, some in business suits. One assailant was addressed by the others as "sir"."

4. "Witnesses say the gunmen questioned staff in the building until the Simonas were identified by name, and that Mahnouz Bassam, an Iraqi woman, was dragged screaming by her headscarf, a shocking religious transgression for an attack supposedly carried out in the name of Islam."

5. "Most extraordinary was the size of the operation: rather than the usual three or four fighters, 20 armed men pulled up to the house in broad daylight, seemingly unconcerned about being caught. Only blocks from the heavily patrolled Green Zone, the whole operation went off with no interference from Iraqi police or US military - although Newsweek reported that "about 15 minutes afterwards, an American Humvee convoy passed hardly a block away"."

6. "The attackers were armed with automatic rifles, pump-action shotguns, pistols with silencers and stun guns - hardly the mujahideen's standard-issue rusty Kalashnikovs."

7. "Strangest of all is this detail: witnesses said that several attackers wore Iraqi National Guard uniforms and identified themselves as working for Ayad Allawi, the interim prime minister."

"...A resistance group in Falluja said the kidnap suggests collaboration with foreign forces. Yet some voices are conspicuous by their absence: the White House and the office of Allawi. Neither has said a word."

"What we do know is this: if this hostage-taking ends in bloodshed, Washington, Rome and their Iraqi surrogates will be quick to use the tragedy to justify the brutal occupation - an occupation that Simona Torretta, Simona Pari, Raad Ali Abdul Azziz and Mahnouz Bassam risked their lives to oppose. And we will be left wondering whether that was the plan all along."


If thus turns out to be true, just watch to see how Bush tries to use it, and whether Allawi makes reference to it in his U.N. speech tomorrow.

[Minstrel Boy]

24. And the message of the killings was delivered on a website

not associated with relaying such communiques.

Important details, all likely to be missed by most in the call for more blood.

[Zhade]

29. I wonder - was the website based in Texas, like the others?

How odd that Islamist websites would be hosted in Texas...

[Zhade]

28. Thanks for this. Raises a lot of questions.

I'm still wondering if the new beheadings (like I believe with the Berg killing) are black ops.

[Aidoneus]

13. now this will just piss everybody off

What is interesting of their case is the wide range of people that spoke in their favour--the "usual suspects" in the lands of the aggressor parties, but also distinguished and perhaps 'unlikely' voices in the region that also spoke up for them, for example Hizbullah, Hamas, the exiled Algerian FIS party leader, etc.. that in addition to the usual mediation of the highly influential Sunni anti-occupation 'Association of Muslim Scholars'.

It is said that the conditions in which their seizure had taken place are distinctly odd when considered contrasted to the other kidnappings, and highly suspicious:--it could be assumed that this, being unlike otherwise comperable events, is instead the work of government agents attempting to discredit their opposition, rather than the work of the latter intending to directly punish some offending party. Even in the case of the most brutal executions, all of the punished captives had served the occupyers and collaborating agents in some manner: I am not aware of any such situation with these women--indeed, quite the contrary if my limited knowledge of their anti-occupation stances is correct.

It's a shame, though. Two pretty white girls being murdered will get exponentially sterner polemics for the next week or so, than 40,000 Iraqis have in the whole past year. That does not detract at all from the tragedy of the former, of course.

[Disturbed]

16. Death Squads-Negroponte

This sure smell like what occured a lot in Latin America under the auspices of Negroponte.

We do know that Alwai was CIA operative and a terrorist, ex. Baath Party member. I suspect that more Death Squad activity will occur from the US Puppet Regime.

[Aidoneus]

17. indeed

Considering the history behind them, a rogues gallery such as that which is gathered up inside the so-called "Green Zone" is a good place to look for the perpetrators of this crime.
I would not argue that for certain past events of a comperable nature, however. Those at least made sense, while this does not.

[PassingFair]

23. Stupid question here, but since he's rarely mentioned on the news...

How do you pronounce his name? Nigropontey? Or Negropont. I'm not being flip, I really don't know....

[Eye and Monkey]

25. neh-gro-pon-tee

[PassingFair]

32. thank-yee

kind-lee

[mike_c]

18. this whole story stinks-- who gains by the death of these two?

The reactions most are venting here are precisely the reactions most people feel-- if true this hurts the resistance far more than it helps them. These two women were working through Sistani (or at least with him), they were providing relief to Fallujah, and they very clearly did not support the actions of the occupation forces. Their kidnapping looked more like a police operation than anything staged by a hitherto unknown militia. No evidence of their condition accompanied the original demands. And most of all, who benefits by killing them and who is harmed, especially if the killing is blamed on the resistance?

This story stinks.

[paulk]

22. it could be a police action

to give The Bush junta an excuse to crackdown on the "resistance". But is Bush really stupid enough to start a bloodbath before the election? Well... probably, so we can't discount that out of hand.

It could be an attempt to goad Bush into attacking - like what happened in Fallujah. The result in both cases would be a further destabilization of the country. There are factions both outside and inside Iraq that don't want an election - an election that would surely see the majority Shi'a gain an upper hand.

[rfkrocks]

26. Jihadist kill again

the kidnappers said they would kill all the western hostages and they will-I was firmly against this war from the beginning but that opposition does not blind me from the monsters in the Jihadist movement as Richard Clarke has so eloquently argued-there were children on the jets that went into the Pentagon and World Trade Center-I have no belief that a Jihadist respects sex (actually prefer their women with no rights) or age-they are fundies pure and simple-just multiply Tim Mcveigh times several thousands-the disease is spread by religious wing nuts and a healthy dose of poverty and ignorance-to hate the US policy so much that one only sees the race or culture of the victim is no better than freeperdom-these women were innocent and heroic-caring for children anonymously while we type on our computers-monsters killed them-this goes beyond argument-the facts speak for themselves

[Minstrel Boy]

30. Don't be so sure about that.

Read what Naomi Klein says regarding the circumstances of their abduction.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1305624,00.html

[Rochambeau]

31. what a shame ! I feel so sad..........

It's the first time I think that but I do wish your GIs will find the bastards who did that and give them the sentence they deserve...
Sad and revolted......

[UCLA Dem]

33. Its really strange...my husband and I were discussing

the recent killings of the hostages this evening and we both noticed they none of the groups hadn't killed any women. We thought maybe it was a "no women and children" type thing. I guess not.

This makes me so sad. I can hardly look at the news these days, I've teared up several times this week just hearing blurbs on the news about the hostages in Iraq.

Such senseless violence. God, please let this awful war end!

[aaronbees]

34. This just enrages me too

I think I'd been under a similar assumption, too, about women being off targets ... If this is true, it just strikes at such a deeper chord for me for some reason. Just like every death in Iraq, it's utterly senseless and vile, but these women were undeniably selfless to be there!

Whoever killed them are freaking scum, but thanks, Bush, for allowing such killers a fine place to operate!

[allemand]

35. Italy Govt Says Claim Hostages Killed 'Unreliable'

ROME (Reuters) - The Italian government has dismissed as "unreliable" claims that two Italian women held hostage in Iraq had been killed, the speaker of Italy's lower house of parliament said on Thursday.

Pierferdinando Casini told the lower chamber that the government was treating the claims, which were posted overnight on the Internet, "with total suspicion" because they were "unreliable."

A group calling itself the Jihad Organization said in a statement it had killed the 29-year-old aid workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, because Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had not bowed to demands to withdraw Italian troops from Iraq.

<...>

Separately, Berlusconi's office issued a statement urging caution, saying the government had found "nothing to corroborate" the Internet claim and adding that it could be an attempt to "use the media for terrorism."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6314169

Let's hope they are right.

[allemand]

36. Confusion over Italian hostages

"Italian parliamentary speaker, Pierferdinando Casini, said the government was treating the claims "with total suspicion".

Two separate claims posted on the internet said the women were dead. <...> In a statement posted on a little-known website, a militant group calling itself Supporters of al-Zawahri claimed to have beheaded the two women.

The same group - named after Osama Bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahri - had made an early claim of responsibility for the kidnapping, but it could not be verified.

Another web posting, from a separate militant group, the Islamic Jihad Organisation, also said it had killed the two hostages.

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3683022.stm

[anarchy1999]

37. All I have to say is NEGROPONTE!!!

Get him the hell out of this country, as in IRAQ first and then exile him to a Far ISLAND, a desert one at that!!!!!!!!

[allemand]

39. Italian hostages probably alive

Thursday 23 September 2004, 14:42 Makka Time, 11:42 GMT  

Contrary to reports on the Internet, two Italian aid workers taken hostage in Iraq are probably still alive.

A spokesman for the influential Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) said on Thursday that Simona Pari and Simona Torretta were being held by a group that has no relation to the resistance.

Speaking to journalists at the committee's headquarters in Baghdad's Umm al-Qura mosque, spokesman Muthana al-Dhari explained why he did not think the two women were dead "because the material gain from holding them is big".
  
"I have my doubts about the whole operation from the start because the style and method all indicate that the kidnappers are an organised gang with no connection to the resistance." 

More:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7E061C03-8641-4BFA-B8D5-E14651272EFF.htm