Sun, June 27, 2004 Beheadings vowed Iraq terrorists kidnap Turks By AP
BAGHDAD -- Militants loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said yesterday they have kidnapped three Turkish workers and threatened to behead them in 72 hours, heightening tension as President George W. Bush visited Turkey. In new violence, an explosion -- possibly from a car bomb -- ripped through downtown Hillah, a largely Shiite Muslim city south of Baghdad, killing 17 people and wounding about 40, the U.S. military said The bloodshed and the latest in a series of abductions claimed by al-Zarqawi's movement -- which has beheaded two previous hostages, an American and a South Korean -- threatened to cast a shadow over a NATO summit opening tomorrow in Istanbul where Bush is seeking help in stabilizing Iraq. The kidnappers demanded the Turks hold demonstrations protesting the visit by the "criminal" Bush and that Turkish companies stop working in Iraq, or else the hostages would be killed. In central Baghdad, insurgents killed a U.S. soldier in an attack on a patrol yesterday, the military said. Gunmen launched new attacks in the city Baqouba, northeast of the capital, sparking battles that killed six insurgents and three civilians.
