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Insurgents claim to kidnap two Egyptians
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-03-20 10:53

A previously unknown militant group in Iraq posted a video on the Internet on Saturday purporting to show two Egyptian engineers the group says it kidnapped for allegedly supporting U.S. forces.

The group, calling itself the National Movement of the Land of Two Rivers, said in a statement that it had seized the two men on a road west of Baghdad and was interrogating them "to know how they entered Iraq and the nature of their job." It gave no date for the alleged kidnapping.

The video showed two men facing the camera, holding their IDs and identifying themselves as Nabil Tawfiq Sulieman and Matwali Mohammed Qassem.

The two said that they were engineers with the Egyptian firm Unitrak, which is a subcontractor to an Iraqi machinery and equipment company.

"We are not going to be merciful with any Arab or non-Arab who enters Iraq and who is proved to be working in ... the interest of the occupying troops or the new government," the statement said.

The authenticity of the statement and videotape, which were posted on an Islamic Web site known as a clearing house for militant groups' material, could not be verified.

The group's statement was more nationalist than Islamist, unlike most other claims of responsibility for kidnappings and other attacks in Iraq.

"We warned and many militant groups warned not to work or deal with this illegitimate government which doesn't represent the Iraqi people," the group said in a statement.

More than 200 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq, and more than 30 have been killed.



 
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