BAGHDAD, Iraq, 6 November 2005 — The wives of two Moroccan Embassy workers who reportedly were kidnapped by Al-Qaeda in Iraq and threatened with execution pleaded for their release yesterday.

Appearing on Al-Arabiya television, the Iraqi women cried and clutched family photos, urging Iraq’s most feared insurgent group to free the two Moroccan men.

“I plead with my brothers, the Muslim Mujahedeen in the name of the Islamic law, and in the name of justice because Abdelkrim was a religious man,” said Leqaa Abbas, the wife of embassy employee Abdelkrim El-Mouhafidi.

An Al-Arabiya reporter said that Leqaa, an Iraqi citizen, is three months pregnant and that her husband has been living in Iraq for more than 20 years.

The Moroccan Foreign Ministry has identified the missing members of its diplomatic mission in Baghdad as El-Mouhafidi and his driver, Abderrahim Boualam, both Moroccan.

The minister said they disappeared on Oct. 20 while driving to Baghdad from Jordan, where they had gone to pick up their paychecks.

In statements on Internet, Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for kidnapping the two men and said it had sentenced both to death after convicting them in an Islamic court.

It was not possible to independently confirm the authenticity of the statements, and it was not known where the two hostages were being held or what had happened to them.

On Friday, Al-Qaeda in Iraq issued another statement, demanding that all of Iraq’s approximately 40 diplomatic missions close or face attacks.

Al-Arabiya said Nahda Ali, Boualam’s wife, was blind and also an Iraqi citizen.

Looking into the camera, she said her husband had taken the job at the Moroccan Embassy because they were poor and needed the money.

“He used to work as a taxi driver, but then I got sick and life became difficult,” she told the TV station.

“We have three children, so he said he’ll take a job at the embassy,” Boualam’s two sons and daughter also were shown on TV, all three of them crying.

“I only want my father back. I want nothing else,” 8-year-old Moustafa said before he broke down in tears as his mother, her arm around him, also sobbed.