Kidnappers holding 8Chinese will spare lives if Beijing issues a travel ban

[Matrix Heart]

BEIJING (AFP) - China says already has warned its citizens to stay out of Iraq (news - web sites) after kidnappers holding eight Chinese men said they would spare their lives if Beijing issued a travel ban."What I want to stress is that the Chinese government has previously issued warnings on many occasions to its citizens, requesting them not to travel to Iraq," foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan said in a statement issued late Friday.Appealing for the immediate release of the hostages, Kong pointed out that the eight men were abducted on their way out of Iraq.

"The eight Chinese people were kidnapped just as they were leaving Iraq. They should be safely released as soon as possible," Kong said.
The kidnappers, who have threatened to kill their eight captives, said they would show "mercy toward them if China bans its citizens from entering Iraq," Al-Arabiya television reported Friday.The demand by the captors, who call themselves Movement of the Islamic Resistance Nuamaan Brigades, came in a video showing the hostages, the Dubai-based Arab channel said.The eight Chinese men were shown on Al-Arabiya, standing in front of rocks, looking scared and confused.

On Tuesday, the kidnappers released footage to Al-Jazeera television of the eight laborers holding Chinese passports and claimed they were helping the US military build facilities in Iraq.The group demanded Beijing "clarify" its position on Iraq within 48 hours or the hostages would be killed.The government and employers of the eight men have denied any link to the United States. Beijing meanwhile said it was sparing no efforts to secure the hostages' release.

On Friday, Li Huaxin, deputy director of the foreign ministry's Department of West Asian and North African Affairs, made a "humanitarian appeal," during an appearance on Al-Arabiya television, for the men's release.  Li urged the freeing of the workers, for the sake of the traditional friendship between China and Iraq, while also citing Islam's teachings of tolerance.  The China Islamic Association has also joined the appeal for the hostages' safe return.  Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing had said the government was working day and night to free the hostages.

State media in Beijing had said Iraq could mobilize "special troops" to free the eight.  Iraq's ambassador in China, Mohammad Ifmeiio, was quoted by the Beijing Youth Daily as saying that the interim government was exploring all avenues to win the men's release, "even mobilizing special troops."  But a Chinese foreign ministry official who spoke to Al-Jazeera television said he doubted these remarks were accurate.  The foreign ministry official said his government was "in close contact with the Iraqi government and other sides," which he did not name.  China's embassy in the Iraqi capital told AFP the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha was complicating matters.

"We are doing everything we can, using every resource possible, but it is holidays with the Muslim people and progress is not as usual," a spokeswoman said.  Chinese diplomats have been talking with Iraq's Committee of Muslim Scholars, which helped win the release of seven Chinese seized last year.  Beijing opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 but, like other nations, its companies have chased lucrative reconstruction contracts in the country.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/iraqchinahostagesdemand

[Sikotic™]

They're probably dead 

[TraceOneInfinite Flat Earther 96']

Sounds like these guys were oppurtunists trying to make a little doe off the misery of the Iraqi's, but the plan didn't quite work out so great in the end.