German hostage shown on video

Wed., Feb. 1, 2006

Robert H. Reid Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A roadside bomb killed a British soldier in southern Iraq on Tuesday as a new video from kidnappers threatened to kill two German hostages if Germany fails to stop cooperating with the Iraqi government.

In a series of apparent sectarian killings, police found the bodies of 16 handcuffed and blindfolded young men around Baghdad, and gunmen shot dead the wife and two sons of a Sunni Arab cleric north of the capital.

Kidnappers threatened to kill Thomas Nitzschke and Rene Braeunlich if Germany does not close its embassy in Iraq, withdraw all the German companies from Iraq and stop cooperating with the Iraqi government within three days.

The videotape aired on Al-Jazeera television showed Braeunlich speaking and clasping his hands in front of him as if begging. No audio was heard.

The video came a day after Jill Carroll, a 28-year-old freelancer for the Christian Science Monitor also held hostage, appeared veiled and weeping in footage on Al-Jazeera.

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German hostage shown on video

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