STOCKHOLM, Jan 24 (AFP) - The Swedish foreign ministry on Monday denied claims from the Al-Qaeda linked Army of Ansar al-Sunna that it had last week 'slaughtered' a Swede in Iraq.
"It turns out that it wasn't a Swede after all," foreign ministry spokesman Christian Carlsson said of Friday's claim by the extremist organization on its website that it had executed both a Swede and a Britain in the war-torn country.
"We have been in touch with our embassy in Amman and they have talked to the security company the two men worked for, and it looks like a Briton and an Iraqi were killed, not a Swede," Carlsson told AFP.
The two men were "slaughtered" at a time when Muslims everywhere seek to "get closer to God by slaughtering sacrificial (sheep)," said the statement attributed to the group, which has taken credit for some of the most gruesome attacks in Iraq.
The reference was to the sacrificing of animals, normally sheep, by Muslims during the current Eid al-Adha festival, in remembrance of Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son to God.
"They slaughtered two crusaders -- a Swede and a Briton -- who work for an intelligence service affiliated to US forces after ambushing and abducting them in Beiji," north of Baghdad, Friday's statement said.
While Carlsson said he did not know the name of the company the men had worked for, it was most likely British security firm Janusian Security Risk Management, which said last week that two employees, including a Briton, were killed in an ambush in central Iraq.
The company said Andrew Whyte from Dundee, Scotland, died alongside an Iraqi colleague in an ambush on Wednesday near Beiji.
"People at the company have looked into whether the Iraqi may have also held a Swedish passport, but it doesn't look like that was the case. Our embassy in Amman has also contacted the British embassy in Baghdad, and they have not heard anything about a Swede being involved," Carlsson said.
01/24/2005 14:30 GMT - AFP