France Says Journalists No Longer Held By Kidnappers

by Ned Parker
BAGHDAD, Sept 2 (AFP) - France said Thursday that two journalists seized two weeks ago by a radical Islamist group in Iraq were no longer in the hands of their kidnappers, after another group of hostages was reportedly slain.
"We know that they are alive and no longer in the hands of the abductors who had held them," French Culture and Communications Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres said.
The development -- which followed the reported killing of three Turkish truck drivers by a group linked to suspected Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi -- came after intensive French lobbying of Arab and Muslim leaders.
However, the whereabouts of Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro and Radio France correspondent Christian Chesnot was not immediately known late Thursday and Donnedieu said: "Our two compatriots are not in complete security with French forces."
The men had been seized on August 20 by the self-styled Islamic Army of Iraq, which was demanding France revoke a law banning the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in state schools that had caused ripples of anger throughout the Muslim world.
The kidnapping had stunned France, which was a fierce opponent of the war in Iraq, and set off an international outcry even among Islamic groups opposed to the headscarf ban which came into force on Thursday.
The hostage news came against a backdrop of continued violence in Iraq.
In the north, vital oil exports were halted after saboteurs set ablaze part of a pipeline in what officials said was the largest ever such attack, sending thick clouds of smoke over the city of Kirkuk and some residents fleeing.
Another 20 people were killed in an overnight US air strike in the rebel hotbed of Fallujah targeting a hideout of the Jordanian-born Zarqawi, who has a 25 million dollar bounty on his head and is suspected of being behind many of the attacks that have plagued Iraq.
Meanwhile, Arabic-language satellite television Al-Jazeera said it had received a video showing the execution of three Turkish hostages by the Zarqawi-linked Tawhid wal Jihad group which also threatened to kill more foreigners and warned: "The time for mercy is over."
Police and medical officers in Iraq told AFP that three Turkish truck drivers, apparently the hostages, were found shot dead on the roadside outside the rebel den of Samarra north of Baghdad.
On Tuesday, hostage-takers in Iraq released a video and statement announcing the killing of 12 Nepalese. It was the largest massacre of foreign hostages in the country and the gruesome footage sparked a rampage by angry protestors in Kathmandu.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier has been shuttling between Iraqi capitals this week in a bid to save the lives of the journalists, who warned that they faced death if France did not change the headscarf law.
A first glimmer of hope came after French Muslim leaders said they were optimistic about the fate of the journalists after talks with the influential Council of the Muslim Ulema, an association of conservative Sunni clerics that has intervened in previous hostage crises.
"I believe that we can hope for a happy end," French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin told France 2 television. "The indications that we have this evening are going in the right direction.
In Kirkuk, smoke billowed across the oil rich city after the pipeline blast, which came barely two weeks after the pipeline resumed production to the Turkish port of Ceyhan following months of sabotage attacks.
"The pipeline with Turkey was shut down," said Ahmed Hassan Ghafif, head of the Northern Oil Co's security for gas and oil pipelines.
Ghafif called it the largest strike against the north's oil infrastructure and the smoke and fire cut off the road between Kirkuk and Baiji.
He predicted it would take two to three days to douse the blaze and gave no estimate on when the pipeline would resume pumping its average of 600,000-800,000 barrels of oil per day to Turkey.
The pipeline was at full production when the bomb exploded at 6:30 pm (1430 GMT) near the town of Riyadh, 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Kirkuk, according to Ghafif and Kirkuk national guard chief Major General Anwar Hamid Amin.
Repeated sabotage of Iraq's oil industry has cost the country more than a billion dollars in revenue.
Elsewhere, US jets struck the city of Fallujah overnight in a raid targeting hideouts suspected of belonging to al-Zarqawi, wanted by the United States for a string of attacks and kidnappings.
Two buildings were destroyed and rescue workers had pulled 20 bodies from the rubble by Thursday morning.
The US military described the attack as a "precision" strike on "safe houses and meeting locations" for associates of Zarqawi.
And talks between radical cleric Moqtada Sadr's office and the Iraqi government broke off Thursday over a demand by the firebrand Shiite leader's camp for US troops to be blocked from entering its Baghdad bastion.
"The government had been responding positively and we were about to reach a final deal after all points were settled but one point of disagreement remained," Sadr aide Sayed Ali al-Yasseri told AFP.
Under the deal, which follows a surprise truce call by the radical cleric on Monday, Sadr's Mehdi Army will hand over heavy weapons in return for the release of all captured fighters.
US forces drove through the sprawling Baghdad slum known as Sadr City calling on militants to hand over their weapons but their appeal appeared to fall on deaf ears.