A video released Friday showed two missing Indonesian journalists flanked by masked gunmen, and Indonesia’s president appealed to the militants to set them free.
The pair had been missing since Tuesday after they were seen being stopped by unidentified men in military uniforms in the turbulent city of Ramadi.
The video, delivered anonymously to Associated Press Television News, showed a man and a woman squinting in the bright sunlight and holding up passports and identification badges from the Indonesian cable network Metro TV.
The documents identified them as 26-year-old Meutya Viada Hafid and Budiyanto, 36, a cameraman who, as is common in Indonesia, uses one name. The people in the photo IDs appeared to be the same people shown in the video.
Their names had been released earlier by Metro TV.
Little-known militant group resurfaces
A voice speaking off camera said the journalists were being held by the Mujahedeen in Iraq, a group about which little is known.
The group was last heard from in March 2004, when a statement attributed to it was circulated in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad. At the time, it pledged not to attack Iraqi police unless they helped U.S.-led troops.
Ramadi has been the scene of frequent terrorist attacks and clashes between militants and U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies.
“We are now investigating the reason they are in the country, and we ask the Indonesian government to clarify their position and tell us the reason they are in the country. Otherwise we will kill them,” the voice on the video said.
President appeals for release
In a statement to APTN and Al-Jazeera television, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono appealed for the pair’s release.
“They were reporting on our brothers and sisters in Iraq, because we in Indonesia — the world’s largest Muslim country — are very concerned about the situation in which the people of Iraq find themselves,” Yudhoyono said. “I hope they can be released and returned to Indonesia safely because their families and all the people of Indonesia are very worried about them.”
The Jakarta government was critical of the invasion of Iraq. Both Yudhoyono and his predecessor refused to send troops to the country.
In the video, the woman wore a black headscarf and parka, while the cameraman wore a woolen hat and black jacket. A man wearing a keffiyeh and carrying an automatic rifle stood on either side of the journalists.
Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said his government was sending a team to Iraq to seek information on the journalists. And one of Metro TV’s owners, Surya Paloh, said he would lead a team to Jordan to help find the reporters.
More than 190 foreigners have been abducted in Iraq in the past year, and more than 30 of the hostages were killed.
The last journalist kidnapped in Iraq was Giuliana Sgrena, a reporter for the newspaper Il Manifesto who was abducted Feb. 4 in broad daylight by gunmen in Baghdad. to APTN on Wednesday begging for her life and warning foreigners — including journalists — to leave the country. She was held by a previously unheard-of group called Mujahedeen Without Borders.
