ISLAMABAD, 11 July 2004 — A Pakistani man freed from captivity in Iraq last week said yesterday he saw his captors behead three hostages — two Americans and an Iraqi — while he was being held.
His account could not be independently confirmed and there have been no recent reports of two Americans and an Iraqi being abducted. Previously, militants have been quick to announce the taking of hostages, usually releasing videotapes showing armed, masked men standing threateningly over the captives.
Amjad Hafeez, a driver working for a US contractor, was taken hostage on June 25 as he returned from work north of Baghdad. He was blindfolded and taken to a nearby house.
Four days into his captivity, Hafeez said he was able to see one of his captors cut the heads off three other hostages.
“The faces of all three were covered with white cloths,” Hafeez told Reuters, a day after returning to Pakistan following his July 2 release. “One of them was crying ‘please, please’ ... but they beheaded him. The two others did not speak,” he said by telephone from Rawalpindi.
“The kidnappers shouted Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest) thrice before beheading each of them in turn.” Hafeez said his captors told him two of the hostages were American and one was an Iraqi soldier.
Kidnappers are currently holding two Bulgarians, both drivers working in Iraq, and have threatened to behead them if their demands are not met. Two hostages have previously been beheaded in Iraq — Nicholas Berg, an American who was looking for contracting work, and a South Korean translator, Kim Sun-il.
In both those cases, the threat of beheading was widely publicized by the attackers, who claimed to be working with Jordanian militant Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who Washington says is closely allied with Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network.
It was unclear why Hafeez’s captors would behead any hostages without first threatening to do so or would then fail to publicize the fact they had done so. It was also unclear what group, if any, Hafeez’s captors belonged to. Hafeez, 25, said he had been terrified. “When I saw it, I was so scared that you can’t imagine. I still feel scared,” he said. “They had threatened that they would behead me like that.”
Unknown Assailants Shoot Dead Pakistani Police Official
A senior Pakistani police official investigating a string of sectarian-related and other incidents of terrorism was shot dead yesterday by unknown assailants in Rawalpindi.
Inspector Raja Saqlain, who had exposed several sectarian terrorist groups in the city, was on his way to the office when the attackers opened fire on his vehicle, killing him and his driver, police said.
Saqlain, who had been receiving threats to his life for some time, was among senior police involved in anti-terror operations since two abortive attempts on President Pervez Musharraf’s life last December.
