Islamic Ruination of Ancient Religions' Sites

"It is with deep regret and great pain that I had to enter a guilty plea on all the charges brought against me. I would like them [the people of Timbuktu] to look at me like a son that has lost his way, and to accept my regrets."
"[I was] influenced by a group of deviant people from al-Qaeda and Ansar Dine. [I hope my punishment will] serve as a purging of the evil spirits I got involved with."
"I would like to give a piece of advice to all Muslims in the world not to get involved in the same acts I got involved with, because they will not lead to any good for humanity."
Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, former Ansar Dine/al-Qaeda member, Mali

"The courts have been slow to recognize this, but there is a clear link between crimes committed against people and attacks on their cultural heritage."
"The ethnic cleansers in the Balkans, like the jihadis in Iraq, Syria and Timbuktu and other places, are keenly aware of the significance of this, which is why they devote so much personnel and resources to the destruction of religious and cultural landmarks."
Andras Riedimayer, scholar of Islamic art and architecture, Harvard University, U.S.A.

The rubble left from an ancient mausoleum destroyed in Timbuktu [File: Joe Penney/Reuters]

Fanatical Islam empowers its believers to embark on a passage to serve Islam by destroying all vestiges of other religions' sacred objects. Just as Islamist jihad instructs the faithful of their duty to the Prophet to emulate him in his violent conquests of those unwilling to convert to Islam by taking it upon themselves to religiously follow in his conquering footsteps to wreak terror on the vulnerable, the prohibition in Islam against graven images requires that those of others be destroyed, since Islam is not consistent with tolerance of other religions and their symbols.

This man who stood before the International Criminal Court, pleading guilty of having led others to destroy shrines, damage mosques and burn sacred, irreplaceable manuscripts in their zeal to do their duty to Islam, spoke earlier this week of having been wrong to heed recruiters citing sacred passages of Islam to justify the spree of wreckage that was embarked upon. Only he can know how genuine his remorse is, or simply a manifestation of his admission of wrong-doing, leaving him in a difficult place. As a teacher who studied Islamic law in Libya, he is not the innocent he portrays himself to be.

Prosecutors have agreed to accept a reduced sentence to be imposed on this man in recognition of  his admission of guilt. Which may point to the precise reason he was willing to admit guilt and remorse, knowing it would lighten his sentence. The maximum sentence possible for the crimes he and others committed with himself as a ring-leader amounts to 30 years' incarceration. By the simple enough expedient of presenting his admission of guilt, he effectively paved the way for a vastly reduced sentence.

The court's chief prosecutor stated it was al-Mahdi "who identified the sites to be destroyed and who provided the means" by which the carnage could be carried out, with pickaxes and crowbars in the "unleash[ing of] a destructive rage" ruining priceless monuments. There are other ways in which Muslims can embark on a mission to destroy the sacred sites of another group, ethnic and religious, by claiming those sites as their own. It is what Arab Muslims have embarked upon in claiming their own status in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, where history recounts the heritage of ancient Israel.

The Islamist penchant for destroying the sacred sites and objects in the Middle East and North Africa has resulted in the obliteration of sites of early civilizations existing long before the entrance of Islam on the world scene. The veneration of these places relates to their status of world heritage sites and as such important to all of humanity. But there is little new in all of this. Throughout the 1400 years of Islam's introduction to the world, it has destroyed churches, cathedrals, synagogues and temples of others, building mosques over their ruins.g

In Mali, particularly in and around ancient Timbuktu, jihadis still roam. A lawyer for the International Federation for Human Rights explained that lawsuits were filed for women and girls who had been raped, with many forced to 'marry' jihadis, while others, captured and used as sex slaves by the fighters suffered the fate of women of whom Islamic texts assure Muslim men that women of conquered areas are theirs to do with as they wish, taking their cue from the Prophet Mohammad.

Allahu Akbar : Al-Qaeda Proposes and Disposes

"I saw that there was a chaos situation there. Some people had arrived in a diplomatic car. When they arrived, the security that was at the hotel fled away and those people got the time to get in the hotel with their weapons."
Salim, Bamako, Mali

"We were evacuated -- there were many people inside the hotel at that stage. I saw corpses in the lobby."
"I hid in my room and there was knocking at my door saying the security forces had arrived and it was over."
Hotel guest, Radisson Blu hotel, Bamako

"We, in the group of the Mourabitoun, in cooperation with our brothers in Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, the great desert area, claim responsibility for the hostage-taking operation in the Radisson hotel in Bamako."

"[A...cease-fire and release of the hostages] predicated on the release of all the imprisoned mujahedeen in the prisons of Mali and the cessation of the aggression against our people in the north and center of Mali [can be arranged]."

Algerian Mokhtar Belmokhtar, chief of Al Mourabitoun

Security officials pose in front of the Radisson hotel in Bamako holding a jihadist flag they say belonged to attackers. (Joe Penney/Reuters)

They're jostling anxiously to take credit for this newest massacre, the group calling itself Al Mourabitoun, an al-Qaeda breakaway (which came to wide public notice when it mounted a large terrorist attack on the In Amenas oilfields in Algeria in 2013 which left 40 hostages and 29 attackers dead), and another jihadi group, the Saharan Emirate of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb led by Yahya Abu Hammam, whose favourite enterprise is the kidnapping of Westerners for profit.

When Islamist terrorists took advantage of Libya's disintegration after its civil war and the resulting availability of the country's weapons arsenals, Mali became a target, and France, its former colonial master, rode to the rescue to try to rescue the ousted democratically elected government. They succeeded to a degree but the jihadis remain in Timbuktu, and the AQIM operates with virtual impunity from that ancient city.

The collaboration between the two groups to effect the attack on the Radisson Blu hotel, considered to be the most heavily guarded in Mali and where foreign visitors, diplomats and newspeople tend to stay, resulted in the killing of about 27 people. The assault which began in the early morning went on for hours, sending the 170 guests in the hotel at the time into a panic of fear. French commandos aided local security forces to eventually clear the hotel of guests, floor by floor, and it took a full dozen hours to do so.

France retains 1,450 troops in Mali; the largest group of Western expatriates in Bamako are French citizens. Driving a vehicle with diplomatic license plates, the attackers exited the car and three gunmen fired weapons killing two hotel security guards, influencing the remainder to flee for their lives and leaving the hotel guests and personnel to fend for themselves. Security forces surrounded the hotel in short order.

"In response to a request by the Malian authorities, the defence minister has decided to send a unit of special forces" stated a French government official of the special forces unit arriving from a base in neighbouring Burkina Faso. Paramilitary officers from Mali's gendarmerie and local security forces prepared to enter the hotel, while inside, the gunmen, moving from floor to floor challenged hotel guests to recite the invocation of Muslim faith. 

Those who failed the test were shot. The lobby, hallways, or rooms of the hotel held the dead. 

Malian forces and the French decided they would enter the hotel under siege and by noon they were inside, themselves going "floor by floor", to clear the hotel of its guests. As the security forces were busy escorting guests out of the hotel the attackers continued their prowling of the upper floors. There were foreign guests from China, France, the United States and Russia. 

Four Belgians were also registered at the hotel, and Geoffrey Dieudonne, a government official, there to help train Mali's civil service, was among the dead.

According to a Guinean guest, the attackers were heard to speak English, with Nigerian accents. "I heard them say in English, 'Did you load it?', 'Let's go'", said Sekouba Diabate. 

Fighters from Boko Haram, the terrorist group spreading chaos and slaughter in Nigeria are known for having gone to Mali to join al-Qaeda. The jihadis find great appeal in gravitating toward the groups known to have realized the greatest success. The challenge among the premier groups in Islamist jihad is for each to demonstrate that they represent the more successful threat to the West.

Al-Qaeda is differentiating itself from Islamic State. It boasts that it slaughters only non-Muslims, while ISIL takes no such care. When the assaults took place on the Kenyan university and the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya, as well as the Algerian gas plant by affiliates, an element of care was taken to differentiate Muslims from non-Muslims, and to spare the lives of Muslims, in contrast to ISIL's proclivity to murder whomever it pleases.

This tactic elicits praise and admiration from its online supporters. One response to the querying of Muslims and the demand they recite Quranic verses and sparing their lives was a praise of the "lions" who engage in this separating out of the faithful "to protect the inviolable blood of Muslims". Another supporter stated: "This is how Muslims SHOULD act"; the Islamic State "should learn a thing or two and drop their crooked creed and methodology", leaving the slaughter for non-Muslims alone.

Dreadfully encouraging. This is Islamic honour at its finest.

Hunting Season On Journalists

"I heard an unusual noise in the street. I went out to see what was happening. Once I got to the door, I saw a pickup, parked next to theirs. There was a man on the ground who had a weapon. He immediately pointed it at me and said, 'Go back inside, go back in!'"
Ambeiry Ag Rhissa, local MNLA ethnic Taureg (separatist group) official, Mali

"We didn't get a sense they were worried. Ghislaine was a tenacious reporter and had the best sources Claude was very comfortable with conflict zones, having worked in Afghanistan and Iraq."
Nicholas Champeaux, journalist, Radio France Internationale

There they both were, exiting from a surely satisfactory interview with their subject, a high-placed MNLA Taureg; mission accomplished, they had their news break and their story: hold the presses. Where were they abducted? Why within earshot in broad daylight of a base where several hundred French soldiers and UN peacekeepers were lounging in their barracks. And despite having interviewed the Taureg official, his presence did not deter their abduction and murder.

A wasted interview. Who will write that story? No need. Another story popped up to take its place. This one too weighted with drama, misfortune and misery. Two French journalists kidnapped in the town of Kidal by Taureg militias. The message surely was that the French intervention in a purely Marlian matter was offensive to the Taureg. Was the assent for an interview with a Taureg leader the carrot that hid the mauling to come?

Having a yearning to be in dangerous places to report on conflicts marks the ethos of a war journalist. There is something in the everpresent danger, the need to never stop looking over one's shoulder, but having the opportunity on occasion to interview the principals in conflict zones, those who are thought to have created the situations that resulted in the deaths of far too many people, to discover through the words emanating from their very mouths what motivates them, and then to carefully record those words, the impressions gained, and the conclusions of the interviewing journalists.

It is heady stuff, the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. A journalist in these situations feels they face death innumerable times through their enterprise, but they are compelled to act as they do. They enter the theatre of conflict with the full awareness that in so doing they are surrendering themselves to Dame Fortune; they may come away from their presence with world-shattering stories; they feel they have a obligation to report in fulsome detail and accuracy what others report minimally from a safe distance.

They are a fully endangered species, meeting their unfortunate end in Syria, in Egypt, in Somalia, in Russia, in Turkey -- all points radiating out from such zones -- and in fact anywhere in the world where their profession is seen as interfering and representative of the hated imperialists by religiously-inspired terrorists who fight the glorious battle of their religious devotion, in abject surrender to the jihad that is incumbent upon them by virtue of their faith. Terry Waite, among others, knew the dangers, and so presumably did Daniel Pearl, when they embarked on dangerous interview assignments, anxious to acquire that elusive triumph of a "scoop".

The scoop happened to be the gruesome, public death of one, and the maddeningly-long brutal incarceration of the other. Echoes of which occur throughout the world in the fate that others experience, and will doubtless continue to occur as long as human nature expresses itself as it seems destined to do, to that time when eternity becomes a final eruption of humanity-caused mass extinction. But for the time being, reporters and journalists seek every opportunity available to them to chronicle current events of dire circumstances.

One of those is what is occurring in Mali with the presence of Taureg militias battling Malian authorities for a homeland of their own in the vast desert preserves that represents their traditional homeland. The presence of al-Qaeda-in-the Islamic Maghreb ensures that misery and oppression, danger and conflict remain the reality of existence there. In Kidal the birthplace of a Taureg uprising that sent the country into a chaos of challenge and conflict two French journalists were kidnapped and slaughtered.

Four other Frenchman had been released after spending three years as hostages in Niger by Al-Qaeda; their release was costly, but the reason for such abductions; to earn operating costs for the Islamist militias, and it cost France $36-million to have them released. Evidently no such opportunity existed for Claude Verlon and Ghislaine Dupont, abducted and speedily killed, two bullets for one, three for the other, and slit throats for good measure.

"The killers are those we are fighting, the terrorist groups who are opposed to democracy and elections", huffed France's foreign minister, Laurent Fabius. Democracy and elections? As though those are the issues uppermost in the minds of the Islamist jihadis? Can it be that this French government led by President Francois Hollande is that blissfully ignorant of the agenda of those whom they oppose? The measure of vicious vituperation, scornful hatred against the West by Islamists is their willingness to martyr themselves for the pleasure of taking with them as many victims as possible.

"An abduction or a car bombing was like a natural, uncontrollable disaster. Getting kidnapped was bad luck, which is what Anderson thought right up to that moment on 16 March 1985 when he left the bright, cosmopolitan world of Beirut in which his other friends lived and enjoyed themselves, and moved, in the space of just a few minutes into utter darkness. We made jokes to mitigate the terror of this black hole. If we drove through Beirut wearing hoods, surely no one would harm us -- they would assume we had already been abducted Or if we pointed a gun at a friend's head as we travelled across town, no one would stop our car -- only once in Lebanon had a kidnapper ever been kidnapped. Terry Anderson never made these jokes; because he was the man who made them necessary.
"When the kidnappers of Islamic Jihad eventually prevailed upon Anderson to make a video film, he must have felt truly abandoned. He seemed to slur his words and on the screen I could not see his lower teeth. Had he been beaten up? If he meant what he said on the video, then he was genuinely outraged when President Reagan negotiated the release from prison in Moscow of Nicholas Daniloff, a US News and World Report correspondent, by freeing an accused Soviet spy in return. Why would Reagan submit to one blackmail and not to another, Anderson asked, apparently unaware that Reagan had been trading guns for hostages from January of 1986. Reagan's argument was simple: the United States had diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union while Terry Anderson's captors were 'faceless terrorists'. But they were not. His principal captor was so well known that American agents tried to arrest him near Paris when he was on holiday in France. The French, mindful of their own hostages, forced the Americans to leave him alone. The French were obeying Lebanese rules.
"We all went along with these unwritten laws. In a land where there was no active police force, no law, no right of appeal, no claim to friendship or journalistic integrity that was sufficient to free our friend, what else could we do? Terry Anderson was the man who proved this, who paid the price for staying on the story."
Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation - The Abduction of Lebanon

Pure Research vs Applied

"If Canada is going to continue to compete internationally, we must do it through new ideas, new products and opening new markets. In other words, through innovation. The NRC (National Research Council) will now focus on the identified research needs of Canadian businesses. It will be customer pull."
Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology Canada

While acknowledging that the purpose of scientific endeavour is basically to open up our understanding of the world around us, he insists scientific investigation must also be acknowledged for its capacity to effect "social and economic benefit". And according to Mr. Goodyear, the change in investigative direction for federal government scientists is meant to meet a need for research and development to aid Canadian companies.

Research, henceforth, under the auspices of the venerable and traditionally pure-research-directed National Research Council is to target the development of commercial products. Which purpose is to ultimately spur the economy and heighten job opportunities. "Industrial research, new growth and business development" is to henceforth animate research potential at the NRC.

Science and research undertakings to expand our understanding while exploring the world we live within is to take a back seat to the more pressing task of furthering the Canadian economy. "Basic" research, claims NRC president John McDougall is better left to the country's universities. And one is left to wonder what will happen to the current valuable collaboration between NRC researchers and university scientists?

One of the identified objects that Mr. Goodyear mentioned as an example will be a search for improved cultivars of wheat strains to benefit both farmers and consumers. A type of wheat that will ideally be more resistant to drought, cold and disease, and in the process produce more wheat per acre. It should take, he guesses, seven to eight years for this improved grain to be successfully bred.

The president of the Canadian Association of Physicists is not impressed by this prospective loss of "basic" research capabilities through a turn-around in the purpose of the NRC. "We have tried to argue that NRC's capacity for basic research should not be lost. And that seems to be happening", said Gabor Kunstatter of the University of Winnipeg.

According to this scientist, the NRC's tradition over the past century of representing "at the interface between industry and universities to some extent is what made them valuable. What will happen to our capacity to make scientific breakthroughs from long-term research that will lead to dramatic improvements in health care, computing, or information security or to other advances that we can't imagine today?"

Good question, and one that everyone should be pondering.  Why not pursue a two-pronged approach, have tax dollars placed where they matter most; in support of both pure research and applied research?

Appeal of a Toxic Ideology

"If he was here up until very recently, who was he in touch with?"
"There's a lot of gumshoe work that has to be done. Once you identify somebody, that's just the start of the story."
"From a counter-terrorism perspective it would be very useful to have a better understanding of the role of some Canadians in these situations."
Ray Boisvert, former Canadian Security Intelligence Service officer

It is now officially confirmed -- if there was indeed any doubt after Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal had informed reporters in January in the aftermath of the hostage crisis at the In Amenas gas facility in Algeria -- that a Canadian he identified as "Chedad" had co-ordinated the deadly assault and four-day stand-off where American, British, French, Norwegian, Japanese Filipino, Romanian and Algerian workers were killed.

The attack, planned well in advance of the event itself, and likely from Libya, coincided with the French incursion into Mali, to interrupt the ongoing seizure of Malian towns in remote areas of the country to secure a stronghold for Islamist militias aligned with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.  The well-organized and -armed militia, calling themselves The Masked Brigade, represented Mokhtar Belmokhtar, held to be more of a plain criminal than a purely fanatical Islamist.

Hundreds of workers were held hostage by the approximately three dozen armed Islamists. All but three, who escaped, were shot dead by Algerian troops when the stand-off was ended. According to a plant employee, ringleader Mohamed Lamine Bencheneb had boasted to the hostages during the siege, "Look at this man and how Islam has reached Canada". It was reported by Le Monde that a Canadian of Chechen origin had been involved.

The RCMP, which had dispatched a few of its investigators to Algeria shortly after the January siege in an effort to discover details that would definitively link a Canadian, and perhaps two, with the attack, has now issued the statement: "The RCMP confirms that Canadian human remains have been identified in Algeria. As this is an ongoing investigation no further information will be given at this time", announced Corporal Laurence Trottier.

This is only the latest Canadian -- or Canadians -- to have been known to have died during terrorism activities overseas. A Toronto college student was known to have been shot dead, fighting with Islamists in the Dagestan region of Russia. Others have participated, in their willing response to radicalism, in terrorist groups in Somalia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and they have died there, in the name of Islamist supremacy.

A Canadian intelligence report of last April spoke of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb representing one of the top global terrorist threats. They have been recipients of millions raised through governments redeeming their nationals taken as hostages. With that funding they have bought weapons, allowing them to expand their influence and their outreach throughout North Africa and abroad.

CSIS holds the spread of the violently Islamist dogma as a response to the Internet-sponsored image of Islamophobia, entreating the faithful, the young, the resentful, the adventurous, and the glory-seekers to join them in their mutual cause. Family members who encourage their youth to become involved and enlist to bring honour to their family name, and the radical ideologues who visit mosques and community centres to enlist new members are all represented as incentivizing young Muslim men to the call of jihad.

Al Qaeda in desperate plea for more terrorists in North Africa

Al Qaeda has issues a plea for more fighters to join its terrorist activities in North Africa

by The Commentator on 18 March 2013 10:56

The SITE Intelligence Group has reported that Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has appealed for new recruits from North African countries in its fight against what it said was France's "Crusader" campaign in Mali.

The global jihad monitoring company stated that the appeal was posted on websites used by AQIM on Saturday 16th March and urged Islamist terrorists being pursued by their governments to join Al Qaeda fighters battling French-led forces in Mali or Algeria.

France launched a ground and air operation in Mali in January this year in an attempt to break Islamist rebels' hold on the region. French officials have stated that the terrorists pose a risk to the security of West Africa and Europe.

The call to arms however looks increasingly desperate as AQIM come under further pressure from local authorities and international intervention. The statement reads:

"The front of the Islamic Maghreb today is in direst need of the support of the sons of Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, and Mauritania, to thwart the attack of Crusader France and defeat its agents in the region, and empower the Islamic project." (Translation of the statement emailed by SITE).

AQIM qualified its call to action by stating that if Islamist youths in North Africa could have a greater impact in their own countries, they should stay to fight secularism and push for the imposition of sharia-based rule.

France's offensive has wrested northern Mali from Islamist occupation and killed scores of fighters. Other rebels have retreated into mountain caves and desert hiding places stocked with arms and supplies.

The Algerian army in January killed at least 32 Al Qaeda-linked terrorists in an assault to end a siege at a desert gas plant in which 23 hostages were killed, many of them foreigners.

Read more on: al qaeda, al qaeda in the islamic maghreb, Mali, and France

Islamist militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar 'killed in Mali'

BBC News online - 2 March 2013

Thomas Fessy : "There is a lot of confusion in the aftermath of the attack".

Islamist militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar has been killed by Chadian soldiers in Mali, Chad's armed forces say. 

His death was announced on Chadian state television but has not been confirmed by other sources.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar is a former al-Qaeda leader said to have ordered January's attack on an Algerian gas plant where at least 37 hostages were killed.

Chadian troops are fighting Islamist militants in Mali as part of an international force led by France.
"Chadian forces in Mali completely destroyed the main jihadist base in the Adrar de Ifhogas mountains... killing several terrorists including leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar," the army statement on Chadian TV said.

Weapons, equipment and 60 vehicles were seized, it added.

Analysis

Thomas Fessy BBC West Africa correspondent

This is the second big claim in two days coming from Chad. First Abu Zeid, now Mokhtar Belmokhtar. There is no other confirmation that these two top jihadi commanders have been killed.
President Deby is probably keen for a reward after he sent nearly 2,000 soldiers to the front line. But certainly the Chadians are well aware that such reports won't go unnoticed. Abu Zeid is known as the most ruthless al-Qaeda field commander in the region - he is believed to have executed at least two European hostages in recent years. Mokhtar Belmokhtar claimed responsibility for the spectacular attack on a gas facility in Algeria in January.
If confirmed, their deaths won't mean the war in Mali is over, but it will certainly be a big loss for jihadi fighters hiding in the mountains bordering Algeria. The French army doesn't even know how many fighters they are up against there. More worrying is the fate of several foreign hostages who are believed to be in the two men's custody.

If confirmed, the death would be a major blow to Islamist militants in Mali, the BBC's West Africa correspondent Thomas Fessy says.

Reports of the killing came a day after Chadian President Idriss Deby said the country's forces killed al-Qaeda militant Abdelhamid Abou Zeid during clashes in northern Mali.

Abou Zeid - whose death is still to be confirmed by DNA evidence - is said to be second-in-command of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which is fighting foreign forces in Mali.
The French military - which is leading the military offensive in northern Mali - has not confirmed either death.

On Friday French President Francois Hollande said the operation was in its final stages.
Islamist militants took refuge in the remote mountains in northern Mali, close to the Algerian border, after being forced out of the main towns and cities by French troops backed by jets and helicopters.

Mali's army and troops from several African countries have also been involved in the fighting.
Islamist rebels took control of northern Mali a year ago after a military coup in the capital Bamako, in the south.

Veteran Islamist Mokhtar Belmokhtar

• Claims to have travelled to Afghanistan at the age of 19 to get military training from al-Qaeda
• Returned to Algeria in 1993 and lost an eye fighting in the bloody conflict between Islamists and government forces
• Joined al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, but later formed his own group after infighting
• Blamed for kidnapping and smuggling across the Sahara region
• Claimed responsibility for the attack on an Algerian gas plant at In Amenas where at least 37 hostages were killed

France intervened militarily in January amid fears they were preparing to advance on Bamako.

'Mr Marlboro'
 
Algerian-born Mokhtar Belmokhtar has been fighting as an Islamist militant for more than two decades.

He claimed to have received military training in Afghanistan before returning to Algeria, where he lost an eye fighting in the Islamist insurgency in the 1990s.

He then joined AQIM - which operates across the Sahara - before breaking off to lead his own group.
The attack on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria - which he claims he was behind - was his group's first large-scale armed attack.

He is also known as "Mr Marlboro" because of his alleged role in cigarette smuggling in the region.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar and Abu Zeid have also been involved in numerous kidnappings.

If confirmed, their deaths raise concerns about the fate of several foreign hostages believed to be in their power, our correspondent says.