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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Canadian woman held hostage in Iraq talked her way to freedom |
| 2004-09-25 |
| By NILES LATHEM New York Post A Canadian woman held hostage in Iraq for 16 harrowing days managed to escape beheading by miraculously persuading one of the terrorists to let her go in exchange for a promise she would help him emigrate to Canada, it was revealed yesterday. Family members of 38-year old Fairuz Yamulky, an Iraqi Kurdish mother of two, was picked up by a U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq's northern desert Tuesday. She provided a dramatic account of the secret ordeal of a hostage who had not previously been reported missing and whose plight was kept under wraps by the Canadian government. Yamulky's father, Kamal, who lives in Vancouver, told Canadian newspapers his daughter was regularly beaten and tortured by her captors. On Monday, they threatened to behead her unless the family paid $2.5 million in ransom and the Iraqi government released 50 women prisoners. But in an astonishing turn of events, on Tuesday afternoon the brave hostage seized an opportunity while the leader of the terrorist group was off negotiating with representatives of her family. Her father disclosed that Fairuz was left in a Fallujah home with only one guard watching over her. She started talking to the guard and eventually convinced him that, if he let her flee, she would help him move to Canada. "My daughter is very smart and clever, and she was able to convince him and talk to him in a nice way," the elder Yamulky told the National Post of Canada. The U.S. and Canadian governments, citing the extreme sensitivity of the hostage situation in Iraq where more than 135 foreigners have been seized, refused to confirm the account or disclose what happened to the man who helped Fairuz escape. Fairuz is a mother of 8- and 14-year-old sons whose family fled Iraq in 1991 and settled in Canada. On Sept. 5, Fairuz was traveling in a truck on the dangerous road from Baghdad to Fallujah to deliver supplies with two bodyguards when a group of eight gunmen ambushed them. |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #5 Maybe this is why the UN would rather talk than do anything else; if you're nice enough to terrorists, maybe they'll do as you want them to. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-09-25 6:01:19 PM |
| #4 I wonder where the guy will live. If he can speak French, I'm sure the Quebec seperatists can use him. They could certainly use a man of experience. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-09-25 6:00:37 PM |
| #3 When you think about it - not a bad negotiating ploy. Wonder if we have ever used it in kidnappings over there? Even though these thugs want to kill us, I'll bet they would all love to emigrate to America. Once here we can keep them out of harm's (ours) way but at least we get some of the people back. You may believe this to be naive but look at the Atta 19 and how they behaved while they were here - it was like a parallel universal paradise to them. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back 2004-09-25 10:21:37 AM |
| #2 Hey, if you let me go, I will help you emigrate to Canada. It's a better life there. Hmm, Hokay. Here is my address and phone number. Thanks. See ya. Get packed and ready to go. Just a pack. Nothing more. I will be calling you, eh? Hokay. See ya.... [......time passes...] [other terrorists come back] Achmed, where is the prisoner???????? Uh, boss, she is in the ladies room. Achmed, she is not here!!!!! Uh, she promised to...uh come back for me...no come back. Achmed, she promised to help you go to Canada, right????? Uh, uh, yeah.......uh, boss, what you doing with that knife? Boss! Boss! Noooooooooooooooo....glg............ |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-09-25 9:22:47 AM |
| #1 Still falling for the immigrant visa ploy. Too bad they're unwilling to make their own country a place worth living in. |
| Posted by: ed 2004-09-25 7:51:55 AM |