Iraq: Japanese taken Hostage as Amnesty points out HR violations
Pakistan Times Monitoring Desk

TOKYO (Japan): A group led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi threatened to behead a Japanese hostage in Iraq unless Japan withdrew its troops, but Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said on Wednesday that Japan's contingent would stay.

Japan's top government spokesman said the hostage had been tentatively identified as Shosei Koda, 24, a resident of Fukuoka in southern Japan. His family said he had been traveling abroad.

The hostage crisis poses a challenge to Koizumi, who decided to send Japanese troops to Iraq despite strong public opposition. "We cannot tolerate terrorism and we will not give in to terrorism," Koizumi told reporters. "We will not withdraw the Self-Defense Force (SDF)," he added, referring to the Japanese military.

Deadline

Al Qaeda Organization of Holy War in Iraq gave the Japanese government 48 hours to withdraw its troops from Iraq, "or this infidel will meet the same fate as Berg and the other infidels," the group said, in a reference to American Nick Berg, who was beheaded in May.

The video, which was posted on a Website often used by militants, showed the anxious Koda, with long hair and a thin beard, seated in front of three masked men and a black banner bearing the group's name. "They are asking why the Japanese government sent its troops to Iraq," said Koda, who was wearing a white shirt.

"They want the Japanese government and Prime Minister Koizumi to withdraw Japanese troops from Iraq or they will cut my head (off)," he said, speaking in English and then in Japanese. Japanese television showed Koda saying in Japanese: "I am sorry. I want to go back again to Japan."

As one militant read out a statement, another grabbed Koda by the hair and pulled his head up to face the camera. Zarqawi's group is blamed for Iraq's bloodiest suicide bombings and hostage  beheadings. The Jordanian militant last week pledged allegiance to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Koda's Family

Koda's family told public broadcaster NHK that Koda had gone abroad in January and started a working holiday in New Zealand in July. They had not been told of is trip to Iraq. "He didn't tell us. I guess he thought we'd oppose it," Koda's father told NHK.

Media reports said Koda was working at a hotel in Jordan and had told his colleagues that he wanted to go to Iraq.

Blair leaves open possibility of longer troop mission

British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged Wednesday that a British battle group on a US-requested mission near Baghdad would be home by Christmas, but left open the possibility that other British troops may have to replace them.

"The Black Watch will come back by Christmas. As to what then happens, we can't be sure at the moment," Blair said.

He was referring to the 500- to 550-strong battalion which along with 300 support troops began its deployment Wednesday to an area south of the Iraqi capital.

"We don't believe that there will be a further requirement for our troops but I can't commit myself, I can't guarantee that," he told parliament.

The battle group began rolling out early Wednesday from its base in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, heading northwards to the US-controlled Babil province.

Washington has asked top ally Britain to redeploy its troops, out of some 8,500 in the country, while US troops focus on wresting the insurgency hub of Fallujah from rebel control -- possibly through an all-out military offensive.

Blair said Washington had made no commitment that it would take over from the British battalion in December. "I haven't been given such insurance, I haven't sought that sort of insurance," he said.

But the prime minister said London was committed alongside Washington on a joint mission to help stabilize Iraq. "We're engaged in a joint operation in Iraq to make sure elections in Iraq can take place in January," he said.

US violating human Rights: Amnesty

The United States is more concerned with getting around international laws which prohibit torture than with safeguarding human rights as it wages its "war on terror", Amnesty International said in a report on Wednesday.

The report, a 200-page analysis of the practices and decisions that led to torture in Iraq, and alleged abuse in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, argues that Washington's "war mentality" led it down a slippery slope toward disregard for the rule of law.

War on Terror

"It is tragic that in the 'war on terror', the USA has itself undermined the rule of law. Its selective disregard for the Geneva Conventions and international human rights law has contributed to torture and ill-treatment," it wrote.

"The torture and ill-treatment of Iraqi detainees by US agents in Abu Ghraib prison was due to a failure of human rights leadership at the highest levels of government sadly predictable," it continued. "The war mentality the government has adopted has not been matched with a commitment to the laws of war," it added.

Instead, the strategy of the US government has been to deny detainees prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions, and to restrict access to detainees citing military necessity both of which have allowed abuse to go by unnoticed and largely unpunished, the group said.●