Eight South Koreans, three Japanese, two Arab Israelis, and a Syrian-born Canadian were kidnapped by insurgents. One of the Koreans managed to escape and South Korean TV stations reported that the others had been released. In a video, captors armed with automatic rifles and swords threatened to burn the Japanese alive if Tokyo does not withdraw from the US-led coalition within three days. Japan said it has no plans to pull out.

The South Koreans were among at least a dozen foreigners kidnapped as fighting continued between coalition forces and Iraqi insurgents in several cities.

Three Japanese nationals and two Israeli Arabs were still being held, according to media reports.

A video aired on the Arabic-language news channel Al-Jazeera showed the three Japanese hostages held at gunpoint and threatened with knives.

The video was delivered to Al-Jazeera with a written demand: Withdraw Japanese troops from Iraq within three days or the hostages would be burned alive.

The kidnappers said they represented a group called the Mujahedeen Squadrons.

Japan demanded the release of its citizens and denounced the hostage-taking as unforgivable.

Japan said its troops would remain in Iraq. It has more than 500 troops in the country so far as part of a humanitarian mission that will eventually number 1,000.

"Troops are there to provide humanitarian support. There is no reason the Self Defense Forces should withdraw from Iraq," said Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda.

"We will do our utmost for those people to be released unharmed."

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi insisted that sending troops was not only necessary but a moral imperative to support the US occupation.

Video of the three Japanese hostages showed them being manhandled, humiliated and threatened with guns and knives -- at times, the knives pressed to their throats.

The names of the three were seen on passports in news footage. They are Koriyama Soichiro, who has a press card issued in Jordan for Weekly Asahi, and Imai Noriaki -- both men. The third is Takato Nahoko, a woman.

Hong Kwang-chun -- one of the South Korean missionaries abducted -- said the group was kidnapped and held for around seven hours before being released.

MBC, a TV station in Seoul, interviewed a woman who said she was among eight Christian pastors stopped at a checkpoint on the way to Baghdad. She said she escaped but that Iraqis took the rest of her party.

Israeli Minister Gideon Ezra said the government would try to free the two Arab residents of Jerusalem.

"It is our obligation to free them from the clutches of evil, evil that has no boundaries," Ezra told Israeli TV.

Iranian television broadcast footage of the two Israeli Arabs, along with identifying documents, according to the Israeli media.

In the footage, a masked man said he represented a group called Ansar al-Din and that it had "prisoners from the occupation forces."

On Iranian TV, the two gave their names and ages as Nabil George Razzouk, 30, and Ahmed Yassin Tikati, 33. They said they were international aid workers.

The abductions were among the latest acts of violence in Iraq as US-led coalition forces battled on two fronts -- Sunni insurgents in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, and the militia of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr elsewhere.

According to the top US general in Iraq, al-Sadr's militia has taken control of parts of the cities of Kut and Najaf, south of the capital.

The cleric's Mehdi Army also is strong in Baghdad's mainly Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City and in southern towns.

Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said the coalition was making strides to crush the cleric's militia throughout the country and to retake the largely Sunni city of Fallujah.

"We will not let a small group of criminals and thugs control the destiny of this country," Sanchez said at a Thursday news briefing.

(China Daily April 9, 2004)