Qaeda-led group says Russian hostages killed

By Inal Ersan

DUBAI (Reuters) – An al Qaeda-led group posted video
footage on the Internet on Sunday showing the killing of three
men it said were Russian hostages seized in Iraq earlier this
month.

The images, posted on a Web site often used by militants,
showed two masked militants beheading one man said to be a
Russian hostage and the “execution” of another by shooting. It
also showed the beheaded body of a third.

The fate of a fourth hostage was not clear,

“This is the video for carrying out God’s ruling against
the Russian diplomats which we present to heal the hearts of
believers and in revenge for our brothers and sisters for the
torture and killing they receive at the hands of the infidel
Russian government,” the Mujahideen Shura Council said in a
statement posted on the site.

Before the killings, the video, whose authenticity could
not be verified, showed four men against a dark red backdrop
speaking Russian in statements dated June 13, 2006. It did not
say when the deaths took place.

The statement defended the killing as an eye-for-an-eye
measure, citing a verse of the Koran — Islam’s holy book —
which says: “Those who assault you, you shall assault with the
same (form) of assault.”

“Beggar scholars (affiliated with governments) will speak
that slaughtering infidels is sacrilegious and so on. We tell
them that this is the book of God, which will be the judge,” it
said.

CHECHNYA

The sister of one of the hostages, in an appeal to the
hostage-takers carried by Al Jazeera television earlier this
week, said that her brother was a Muslim.

The Council, an umbrella group led by Iraq’s al Qaeda wing,
had demanded that Russia withdraw its troops from Chechnya and
release all Muslim prisoners.

In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry could not
immediately confirm the report of the deaths.

“At this moment our sources in Iraq have not confirmed the
report of the killing of the Russian hostages,” ministry
spokesman Mikhail Kamynin told Ekho Moskvy radio.

“The Foreign Ministry is doing all it can and using all
channels to check the validity of this information.”

The four embassy staff were kidnapped and a fifth was
killed when gunmen blocked their vehicle in Baghdad on June 3.

The Mujahideen Shura Council said in an Internet posting
last week it was holding the four Russians and had decided to
kill them after Moscow failed to meet its demands.