Al Qaeda link fuels fears for hostages

[ECH1969]

Kidnappers holding four Western hostages in Iraq - including Auckland student Harmeet Singh Sooden - probably have links to the terrorist network that executed Briton Ken Bigley, CNN has reported.

In a grim development as the deadline for the hostages' execution loomed yesterday, CNN said terrorism experts believed the previously unknown kidnappers identifying themselves as the Swords of Righteousness Brigade are connected to Jordanian-born Islamist militant Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and his "al Qaeda in Iraq" network.

Sooden, 32, a Canadian citizen, and his Christian Peacemaking Team friends, fellow Canadian Jim Loney, American Tom Fox and Briton Norman Kember, were kidnapped near Baghdad University on November 26.

Their captors are demanding the freeing of all Iraqi detainees in return for the hostages' lives. Their deadline was originally Thursday, but they extended it to yesterday.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3508357a10,00.html

[undeterred]

1. My fear is already pretty well fueled

But we're past the deadline now and I don't know what that means.

[daleo]

2. This may or may not be

But the article doesn't actually say why anyone thinks this group has a link to "Jordanian-born Islamist militant Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and his "al Qaeda in Iraq" network."

[pinniped]

3. Al-Zarqawi is everywhere. I saw him in downtown SF earlier.

This article is nothing but speculation.

They don't know shit.

- believe
- probably