Japan defies Iraq terror threats

Militants freed a Filipino truck driver after the Philippines government gave in to their demands to withdraw troops from Iraq to prevent the beheading of the 46-year-old father of eight who had been held captive for two weeks.

Apparently emboldened by their success, insurgents promptly took aim at Japan, threatening in a website message to send “lines of cars laden with explosives” to kill its troops in Iraq if they did not leave. Japan rejected the demand.

Also yesterday, the American military said two US Marines and two US soldiers were killed in action in Anbar Province, a Sunni-dominated area west of Baghdad, bringing the death toll of US service members in Iraq to nearly 900.

Two Marines were killed in separate incidents yesterday while conducting “security and stability operations”. One soldier was killed on Monday, and a second died of wounds.

At least 895 US service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to a count of names of the dead released by the Pentagon. The latest deaths would raise the toll to 899.

More than 60 foreigners have been taken hostage in recent months, and there were fears that the action by the Philippines government would lead to more kidnappings and prompt members of the US-led coalition to think twice about sending, or keeping, their soldiers in Iraq.

“The Filipino withdrawal tells the insurgents that they can continue to chip away at this coalition and make it a coalition of two (Britain and the United States),” said Richard Shultz, a professor of security studies at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

In Baghdad, Filipino hostage Angelo dela Cruz was dropped off in front of the United Arab Emirates Embassy yesterday, a day after his government withdrew the last of the 51 troops they had stationed here.

“Angelo has become a Filipino ’everyman,’ a symbol of the hardworking Filipino seeking hope and opportunity,” Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said during a nationally televised address.

“Angelo was spared, and we rejoice,” she said with a smile.

With more than 7 million Filipinos working overseas – 1.4 million of them in the Middle East – many people in the Philippines developed a personal connection to dela Cruz since he was first shown in a video aired on July 7 surrounded by masked gunmen who kidnapped him near the city of Fallujah. That connection put intense pressure on Arroyo to secure his freedom.

Safely inside the Philippines Embassy in Baghdad, dela Cruz enjoyed beer with friends, including a fellow Filipino driver, around a table covered with plates of salad, rice and traditional Iraqi chicken.

Dela Cruz said his captors treated him well, and he thanked Arroyo for pulling out the troops. “I know that the Filipinos are all very happy about the decision of the president,” he said.

The US and Iraq have criticised the pullout, saying it would endanger others here.

Thousands of foreigners work in Iraq for US forces, in reconstruction efforts or as drivers hauling fuel and cargo for private companies.

Of those kidnapped in recent months, some escaped, many were released and at least three were beheaded in gruesome videos designed to spread fear.

A fourth video released last week showed a man, identified as Bulgarian truck driver Georgi Lazov, kneeling before armed men from the Tawhid and Jihad group of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Al-Jazeera television station, which declined to show the rest of the video, said it depicted his killing.

The group had threatened to kill Lazov and fellow Bulgarian Ivailo Kepov if the US military did not release Iraqi detainees. Kepov’s fate remains unknown.

Bulgaria – with a 480-member infantry battalion here – refused to withdraw, though it did urge Bulgarian truck drivers to stop making trips into Iraq. Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Pasi suggested on Monday that all countries adopt a common “code of behaviour” for such hostage crises. “In these cases, cooperation is crucial,” he said.

South Korea also faced pressure to cancel plans to send 3,000 troops here when one of its citizens, Kim Sun-il, a 33-year-old translator, was kidnapped and beheaded by militants.

Soon after dela Cruz’s release, his kidnappers – the Khaled bin al-Waleed Corps – took aim at Japan, demanding it pull out 500 troops sent here for medical and reconstruction duty. Japan refused in April to withdraw after three Japanese were kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents. They were released unharmed.

A Foreign Ministry official in Japan said yesterday that Tokyo would not pull its troops from Iraq.

Japan’s deputy chief Cabinet secretary, Masaaki Yamazaki, said: “Our government thinks it’s important that the international community continue to support Iraq’s effort to rebuild the country. We would like to continue our support.”

The insurgents’ web statement also told Arab and Islamic governments not to send troops.

“We are warning you for the last time: We will hit with an iron fist all those supporting the Americans or (interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad) Allawi or his cronies.”

Allawi had asked some Muslim countries to contribute troops, but so far none has come forward.

Violence is a likely factor. Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he would not even send a planned medical team until “the situation is a little more stable”.

Violence continued yesterday, with a roadside bomb attack on a vehicle near the city of Baqouba, north of Baghdad, killed four civilians and wounded two others, said Emad Kamil Rahim, a local hospital official.

Also, in the southern city of Basra, gunmen killed Hazim al-Aynachi, a gubernatorial candidate, and his bodyguard and driver as they were leaving his driveway for work yesterday morning, council head Abdul Bari Faiyek said.

In Samarra, a hotbed of violence 60 miles north of Baghdad, US forces and militants engaged in running gunbattles, the US military said. Four Iraqis were killed and five were wounded, said Ahmed Jaddo, a hospital official.

The military said that US soldiers returned fire at insurgents and destroyed the house they were in, while a US warplane flattened another house with a 500-pound bomb.