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 Wednesday September 08, 2004 00:38 by iosaf
 members of a pacifist NGO founded in Italy in 1991. They called themselves "ponte per Iraq" whilst working in Bagdhad, where their activity focussed on water purification, sanitary and hygiene operations in support of the Islamic Red Crescent equivalent of the Swiss Red Cross.  Simona. she looks like a pacifist, she's been photo-ed with the rainbow flag and she is not self employed or working for a right wing newspaper. Little over a week ago, I reportd the hostage taking of two journalists, (one self employed) and the other a worker for the right wing daily Le Figaro, both citizens of France, who with their Syrian chauffeur were on their way to the besieged Islamic town of Najaf, the scene of prolonged conflict between Islamic fundamentalists with considerable international interest and the current enterim regime of Iraq with assistance from the U.S. forces stationed in Iraq for over a year since acting on unreliable intelligence deposed the undoubted tyranny of Saddam and brought it up to date with the sort of ridiculous and contrived packaged global horror that we are all now used to, and I sugested in the author field of that article that someday Al Jazeera would face the key maker, might I remind you that in the meantime there have been in excess of 600 arrests in the southern suburbs of Baghdad which btw are the "road to Najaf", Al Jazeera Iraq no longer exists and all his material has been seized by the interim government as well as its employees, and this has led to the appearance of a new "islamic fundamentalist friendly(?)" TV channel and website. The same which maintains the "imminently to be released" French journalists kidnappers are asking for millions of "dollars" from the French Government. |
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Comments (6 of 6)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6AMY GOODMAN: What about the two 29-year-old Italian women, along with two Iraqis, who were kidnapped, part of A Bridge to Baghdad, the group, perhaps the longest standing foreign peace group in Iraq since the Persian Gulf War more than ten years ago?
PATRICK COCKBURN: Yes, well, this was particularly shocking, partly because the people targeted had done nothing except good to Iraq, and secondly, this was in broad daylight in the center of the capital near the national theater. That's the nearest big building. They turned up in heavily armed -- people thought they were government security forces -- swept around the guards and kidnapped these two women. While it was they were quite well known here, they aren't people whom anybody thought would be targeted by kidnappers.
Hello there. Actually, Patrick Coburn is not your pin-up counterpunch writer, Isible, that would be Andrew Coburn. I can't imagine him writing for both Independent newspapers (those naughty capitalists!) and that online online paranoia-rag, Counterpunch. You silly moo!
and flown back to Italy in a small fast jet where they touched down wearing looks of relief and expensive traditional silk arabic dresses and holding each others' hands.
The French journalists "are still expected to be imminently released", and there are almost 100 hostages in Iraq.
free.
There is no such writer as Andrew Coburn on Counterpunch. It is Patrick Cockburn: http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick09272004.html. He writes for the London Independent, not Independent Newspapers.
Roll on the usual boring conspiracies about this being an inside job/publicity stunt, etc by the usual tiresome suspects - N. Klein (tm), etc.
His name is Alexander and has written a book with Patrick
Italy's adoration of the "two Simonas", the women aid workers abducted in Iraq, began to sour yesterday, as the extent of their sympathy for the Iraqi fight against the allied occupation became clear.
In their first big interviews given since their release in return for a reported $1 million ransom on Tuesday, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both 29, gave their backing to insurgents opposing the allied forces.