Iraqi Rebels Release Held Italian Journalists

[gottaB]

A group of Italian journalists from Tg 5 TV channel have been released after being taken hostages by armed and masked assaulters in the southern city of Kufa, about 10 kilometers from Najaf.

The car, which carried the group of journalists, including famous TV anchor Tony Capuozzo, was stopped and the attackers took their cameras, money and documents. They forced the journalists to head for a near-by mosque for a check.

The attackers said they belonged to the al-Mahdi militant group, lead by the Shia cleric Muqtada.

Twenty minutes later they were ordered to release the Italians and give them back their belongings.

Iraqi Rebels Release Held Italian Journalists

(That's the whole story right now.)

[MSgt213]

1. Didn't Capuozzo say "Hey I'm the famous Tony Capuozzo"?

[Ironpost]

2. Hostages

How can it be that the Iraqi are more humanitarian than we are. Concerning the release of the Italian journalists. Do we know of any incidence of Iraqi torturing coalition troops.

[Mike Daniels]

7. If they were truly humanitarian they wouldn't have taken them to begin w/

There's nothing honorable about kidnapping someone. Releasing them unharmed doesn't win you brownie points after the fact.

[gottaB]

8. detentions are not necessarily violations of human rights

"Kidnapping" of course would be criminal and inhumane. What criteria do you use to differntiate between kidnapping and vanilla detention? What is the evidence?

[sundancekid]

3. thanks for the good news ... link is a 404 though

can you possibly update the link?

[gottaB]

4. It works for me

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=34205

?

[maddezmom]

5. any other sources?

haven't been able to find anything else on this...hope it's true.

[gottaB]

6. in Italian

http://www.gds.it/read_art.asp?id=44371

[ConcernedCanuk]

9. I don't think being captured in a war zone makes one a "hostage"

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Heck, they were released 20 minutes later.

So this would mean that the US has 600 hostages in Gitmo, and thousands of Iraqis as "hostages"?

Nah, that's irresponsible reporting as far as I'm concerned,

They weren't even detained long enough to merit the story really.

I'm sure some are held up longer just at regular checkpoints.

Reminds me,

My car got checked out 20-some years ago at the US/Canada border,

took them over an hour

- was I a "hostage" ??? :shrug: