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Date Posted: 07:54:45 08/29/04 Sun
Author: nyt
Subject: Militants Holding French Journalists

August 29, 2004

Militants Holding French Journalists Demand End to Ban on Scarves
By ERIK ECKHOLM

AGHDAD, Aug. 29 — A militant Iraqi Islamic group holding two French journalists has demanded that France annul a new law banning Muslim head scarves in public schools, adding an ominous new transnational dimension to the wave of foreigner kidnappings here.

The journalists, Christian Chesnot of Radio France International and Georges Malbrunot of the Paris newspaper Le Figaro, disappeared on Aug. 20 while driving from Baghad to the Shiite holy center of Najaf, then the scene of heavy fighting between American forces and a Shiite militia.

Nothing was heard of their fates until Saturday night, when the Arab television network Al Jazeera showed videotapes of the two men, looking healthy, and reported that the captors, a little-known group called the Islamic Army in Iraq, were demanding the change in French schools policy. The group called the French law "an injustice and an attack on the Islamic religion and individual freedoms," the network reported, and gave France a deadline of 48 hours to repeal the measure.

The French law was adopted last March and takes effect in September. It bars the conspicuous display of religious symbols of any kind in government-run schools, including Jewish skullcaps and large crosses, but was prompted by the surging use of Islamic head coverings among the country's growing population of Muslim students.

French politicians say they are trying to protect the tradition of secularism and bring Muslims into the mainstream, but the law has been condemned by hard-line Islamic groups and several, including Al Qaeda, have threatened reprisals.

Still, French reporters and citizens working in Iraq were widely seen as less likely than others to be targets of the insurgents because France opposed the American invasion and has not sent troops. This is the first in a dozen kidnappings of journalists this year in which demands have centered on domestic issues of a country outside the region.

Islamic Army in Iraq, which appeared on the scene only last spring, also held the Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, who disappeared on the same day as the French reporters did, along the same stretch of road. The militants threatened to kill Mr. Baldoni if Italy did not withdraw its 3,000-member military contingent from Iraq within 48 hours. The Italian government did not budge and Al Jazeera reported on Friday that it had received a gruesome videotape showing Mr. Baldoni's death.

Iraqi and western intelligence services are struggling to learn more about the group, which has also claimed responsibility for the killing of two Pakistani hostages, held and then released a Filipino and are still believed to be holding an Iranian diplomat.

Officials believe that the Islamic Army in Iraq is dominated by militant Sunni Muslims from the western region of Anbar province, where Falluja and other cities are now controlled by hard-line Islamic groups that combine Iraqi nationalism with the "holy war" ideology of Al Qaeda. There is evidence that some Shiite Muslims are also associated with the group, but experts are unsure whether they operate as a separate unit or together with the Sunni militants.

The French and Italian journalists were captured in a mixed Sunni-Shiite region about 50 kilometers south of Baghdad, known as a dangerous cauldron of hard-line Islamists and criminal gangs. Some law enforcement officials in Baghdad speculate, based on the eight-day lag between their disappearance and Saturday's ultimatum, that the French journalists were first captured by a less ideological criminal group who then sold the hostages to the Islamists.

In Paris, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin met three top ministers today to discuss the kidnapping, Agence France-Presse reported.

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