Baghdad, 3 Nov. (AKI) - The two Moroccan embassy officials kidnapped in Baghdad will be killed because they are infidels, al-Qaeda in Iraq has said in a statement posted to the Internet. The group led by the Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said an al-Qaeda Sharia 'court' had interrogated the two men and found them guilty. The two Moroccans were abducted last week. "We have judged the two in the framework of the war announced by the mujahadeen against the infidel diplomatic representatives" the statement reads. The group indicated that it would announce the mens' deaths in a successive statement.
The two Moroccan embassy staff were kidnapped while they were travelling on a highway, considered to be extremely dangerous, that links Baghdad to the Jordanian capital, Amman. To prove that the Moroccans had indeed fallen into the hands of al-Zarqawi's group, internet sites linked to al-Qaeda earlier this week published a claim of responsibility accompanied by the identity documents of the two Morrocan embassy employees, Abdelkrim El Mouhafidi, the advisor to the diplomatic mission, and driver, Abdelrahim Boualam. On Monday, the Sunni Council of the Ulema made an appeal for the release of the Moroccan nationals. |