Relatives and Muslim leaders appealed to Iraqi militants on Thursday to release three Kenyan truck drivers they took hostage, saying the men were good Muslims who went to Iraq to earn a living for their families. A militant group calling itself The Holders Of The Black Banners, announced on Wednesday it had taken the Kenyans, three Indians and an Egyptian hostage. The group said it would behead a captive every 72 hours beginning on Saturday night if their countries do not announce their intentions to withdraw troops and citizens from Iraq. "We plea to those who are holding our brother to release him without any condition because he is a family man who went to make an honest living out there," said Faiz Khamis, younger brother to the kidnapped Ibrahim Khamis. "He is a good Muslim trying to support his wife and four children and the kidnappers should consider that," the younger Khamis said by telephone from Kenya's Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. "Our brother bore no ill-will to the people of Iraq."
Umi Mohamed said she recognised her kidnapped cousin from newspaper photographs and television images of the victims that appeared in the Kenyan media on Thursday morning. The elder brother of hostage Jalal Awadh said he was also a good Muslim and family man. Ahmed Kamal joined Muslim and political leaders calling for the hostages' immediate release. "We are stressing to the kidnappers that they are holding innocent men and they should not do injustice to these men," said Mohamed Dori, secretary general-general of Kenya's Council of Muslim Clerics. "They need to understand that Muslims in Kenya strongly opposed, and still opposes, the invasion of Iraq by the US," Dori said by telephone from Mombasa. "We also oppose US policies in the region because they caused the mess out there." Neither India, Kenya or Egypt are part of the 160 000-member United States led military occupation of Iraq. However, interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi appealed last week to India and Egypt to send in troops. |
