3 Japanese hostages freed; Iranian killed
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-04-15 23:43

Three Japanese hostages were freed Thursday, but the murders of an Iranian diplomat and an Italian captive were chilling proof of the risks foreigners face in Iraq, where rebels are battling the U.S.-led occupation.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda speaks to reporters at the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo Thursday, April 15, 2004. Japan's hostage crisis intensified Thursday with reports that two Japanese freelance journalists had been kidnapped in Iraq as the government failed to make headway with three other hostages abducted last week. While noting it still had to check on the information, Fukuda said it had indications two more of its citizens had been seized. [AP]

General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news conference Iraq's U.S. administrator Paul Bremer was using "multiple channels" in the negotiations.

"Ambassador Bremer is deeply involved and Iraqi officials are deeply involved with him in this effort. There are other groups without official status which are trying to help."

The three Japanese, apparently well, were handed over to a Sunni Muslim body in Baghdad that has been negotiating hostage releases. They were later driven to the Japanese embassy.

The two men and a woman appeared from footage shown on Al Jazeera television to be a trio captured last week. Two more Japanese civilians have been reported missing near Baghdad.

A leader of the Muslim Clerics Association, Harith al-Dari, said the group had no direct links with the kidnappers and was seeking the release of all foreign civilian hostages.

"What led us to do that was when we saw pictures of the mothers and families of the Japanese prisoners in the media more than a week ago," he told Reuters television.

A Japanese Foreign Ministry official confirmed that three hostages had been freed and were safe.

ITALY UNDETERRED

The three seized last week are Noriaki Imai, 18, who wanted to research the effects of depleted uranium weapons, journalist Soichiro Koriyama, 32, and aid worker Nahoko Takato, 34.

Their captors had threatened to kill them if Japan did not withdraw its troops from Iraq. Japan rejected the demand.

Italy has also vowed to keep its troops in Iraq despite the murder of one of four Italian hostages held there.

"They have destroyed a life. They have not cracked our values and our efforts for peace," Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said after the killing of Fabrizio Quattrocchi.

Underscoring the lawlessness sweeping Iraq, an Iranian diplomat was killed near the Iranian mission in Baghdad. Iran state television named him as first secretary Khalil Naimi.

A Reuters correspondent saw a body slumped in a car with at least two bullet holes in it, smashed against a lamp-post. "We have been told that he was driving his car to go to the embassy and three men drove up and shot him," an Iranian official said.

An Iranian delegation has been in Iraq to help mediate between U.S.-led authorities and Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

U.S. troops are poised around Najaf, where Sadr is holed up. The United States has vowed to kill or capture the rebel cleric and destroy his militia, which launched an uprising this month.

Bowing to pressure from Shi'ite clerics anxious to avoid any military action in the city, Sadr has offered unconditional talks, according to a negotiator acting on his behalf.

In Falluja, residents said U.S. planes struck targets in several districts amid overnight clashes between rebels and U.S. Marines. There was no word on casualties.

Naoko Imai (R) and Ayako Inoue, family members of Japanese hostages captured in Iraq, celebrate with each other at the New Chitose Airport, northern Japan, April 15, 2004 after they confirmed the news that three Japanese hostages captured in Iraq including their sister Nahoko Takato and son Noriaki Imai, were freed safely. [Reuters]

Fighting calmed after daybreak, though Marine tanks opened fire after a rebel attack outside the town, witnesses said, and four insurgents were killed 16 km (10 miles) to the north.

The U.S. military has lost at least 93 troops in combat since March 31 -- four more than the total killed in the three-week war that toppled Saddam.

The chaos in Iraq has shown how hard Washington is finding the task of stabilizing the country it invaded last year. The stretched U.S. military has decided to keep more than 20,000 troops in Iraq beyond their year-long tours of duty.

The war has also taken a political toll on U.S. President Bush, who is running for re-election as a war president. Polls show continued violence in Iraq has eroded his support.

Iraqi mediators have been trying to shore up a shaky truce in Falluja, where hospital officials say more than 600 people were killed and 1,200 wounded in last week's fighting.

Myers said talks on Falluja, where Marines attacked rebels after the murder and mutilation of four U.S. contractors there, could not go on for ever. "I think we have to be prepared...that there may be further military action in Falluja," he said.

European governments lined up to spurn an apparent offer of a truce from Osama bin Laden if Europeans pulled troops out of Muslim nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

The voice on the audio tape, purportedly bin Laden, said there could be no peace with the United States, but told Europeans: "Stop shedding our blood to save your own."

GRISLY KILLING

Al Jazeera received a videotape of the Italian private security guard's murder, which it said was too bloody to screen.

The killing, by a previously unheard-of group, followed a kidnap spree that has snared foreigners from a dozen countries this month, Iraq's bloodiest period since Saddam Hussein was ousted a year ago. It was the first such publicized killing.

Kidnappers freed French journalist Alexandre Jourdanov on Wednesday, but more than a dozen foreigners remain captive.

Al Jazeera said kidnappers had threatened to kill three other Italian hostages, colleagues of Quattrocchi in a U.S. security firm, if Italian troops were not withdrawn.

The deaths and kidnappings have rattled countries with civilians in Iraq.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo told officials to prepare contingency plans to evacuate some 3,000 Filipinos, but said peacekeepers and aid workers would stay for now.

About 20 buses carrying Russian workers headed for the airport in an evacuation organized after the kidnapping and swift release of three Russians and five Ukrainians in Baghdad.