BAGHDAD, Iraq – A group linked to al-Qaida threatened in a videotape Saturday to behead two Americans and a Briton within two days, and insurgents carried out a new string of car bombings, killing at least 20 Iraqis and two American soldiers.
The unrelenting violence has taken 300 lives in the last week alone.
The videotape was the first word on the fate of Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong and Briton Kenneth Bigley since the three construction workers were kidnapped from their Baghdad home two days earlier.
“My job consists of installing and furnishing camps at Taji base,” each man said in turn after identifying himself, as all three sat on the floor blindfolded, slightly bowed but apparently unharmed. At one point, a militant’s rifle was pointed down at the head of the man who identified himself as Hensley.
The Tawhid and Jihad group, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the abduction and demanded the release of Iraqi women detained in two American prisons.
The videotape was broadcast by Al-Jazeera shortly before it revealed a fresh kidnapping claim. Another group claimed it had kidnapped 10 workers for an American-Turkish company and threatened to kill them in three days if their firm didn’t leave Iraq.
Kidnappings and spectacular bombings have become the signature weapons of insurgents waging a 17-month campaign against U.S. and Iraqi forces, a campaign that has persisted since the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi took power in June.
Nevertheless, Allawi insisted U.S. and Iraqi forces were winning the fight and said progress would be made to calm the violence before crucial elections set for January.
The insurgency is “not getting stronger, it’s getting more desperate. We are squeezing out the insurgency,” Allawi said, speaking in an ABC interview.
“We are winning. We will continue to win. And we are going to prevail,” he said.
On the road to Baghdad’s airport Saturday, insurgents set off a car bomb near an overpass as a U.S. convoy passed, wounding three U.S. soldiers. When other American troops moved to the scene, another car bomb exploded, killing two soldiers and wounding eight more.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, a car sped at a crowd of would-be recruits lined up at the offices of the Iraqi National Guard. Guardsmen opened fire on the vehicle and it exploded, leaving the street strewn with bloodied bodies, twisted metal and shards of glass.
At least 19 people were killed and 67 wounded, the Health Ministry said.
Early today, a roadside bomb exploded in a small side street in central Baghdad, killing one Iraqi man and seriously wounding two, police and witnesses said.
Associated Press
Smoke billows from a car bomb explosion Saturday in Baghdad, Iraq. Three U.S. soldiers were wounded in the attack on their convoy.
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