Video Shows Brutal Killing of 11 Iraqi Soldiers Held Hostage

Iraqi insurgents Thursday released grisly video showing the beheading and execution-style shooting of 11 Iraqi soldiers, who the group said were abducted south of Baghdad this week as revenge for “guarding crusader American troops.”

Another video released by a different group showed the latest foreigner to be kidnapped: a Polish woman threatened by masked insurgents holding a pistol to her head. The group demanded that Poland withdraw its troops from Iraq in exchange for the hostage’s life.

The chilling videotapes were broadcast as the deadline passed for a young Japanese traveler who was abducted by militants. Although the government of Japan has refused to meet a demand to pull its troops out of Iraq, Tokyo sent an envoy to Amman, Jordan, on Thursday to seek the hostage’s release.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military reported the deaths of two American soldiers: one who died in a rocket-propelled-grenade attack near Balad, north of Baghdad, and another killed when insurgents attacked an Army patrol in the capital with a car bomb. That brings the number of dead American troops to at least 1,109 since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

In Ramadi, west of Baghdad, hospital officials reported that two Iraqis were killed in clashes between U.S. soldiers and insurgents.

In a statement posted on the Internet, the Ansar al Sunna Army claimed responsibility for the deaths of the 11 Iraqi soldiers, abducted between Hillah and Baghdad. Iraqi defense and interior officials could not say whether the troops, who wore camouflage pants and T-shirts, belonged to the Iraqi national guard.

“After investigating with them and [hearing] their confessions, it turned out that this group was responsible for guarding the crusader American troops,” the insurgent statement said. “A call to the army and police: Repent to God ... abandon your weapons and go home and beware of supporting the apostate crusaders or their followers, the Iraqi government, or else you will only find death.”

The deaths were graphically recorded. One Iraqi was beheaded, and the others were shot in the head while squatting, hands bound behind their backs.

The killings are part of the increasingly brutal campaign by insurgents to target Iraqi police and military personnel in the hope of destabilizing the government before scheduled elections in January. The video’s release came five days after insurgents abducted and executed about 50 Iraqi soldiers near the Iranian border.

The group that took responsibility for the 11 soldiers’ deaths also said it killed 12 Nepalese, who were slain after being abducted in August.

In the videotape of the Polish hostage, which was aired by the Arab satellite television channel Al Jazeera, the middle-aged woman sits before a black flag and between two masked men as one of them holds a pistol to her head. The woman states that she has worked in Iraq for a long time and calls for the withdrawal of Polish troops and the release of Iraqi female prisoners from the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison.

Leszek Adamiec, a former Polish consul in Iraq who worked with the abducted woman, identified her for the private Radio Zet station as Teresa Borcz-Kalifa. Adamiec said she worked with him at the Polish Embassy in Iraq translating and accepting visa applications from Iraqis.

Her mother, Halina Borcz, appealed to the kidnappers on Polish television from her Krakow apartment: “I must appeal that they do not hurt her. She has done nothing wrong. What kind of men are they?”

Iraq’s Interior Ministry spokesman, Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman, told Associated Press that the woman was a longtime resident of Iraq who held dual citizenship. Authorities believe that she was abducted from her home in Baghdad on Wednesday evening.

Polish officials said they would not withdraw their troops.

President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who was in Belgium on Thursday, told TVN 24, a Polish TV channel: “We are not going to withdraw from Iraq, and this is a clear answer. We have been saying it for months.... Today, withdrawing from Iraq would be surrendering to a dictate by terrorists.”

Poland leads a 6,000-member multinational division in south-central Iraq that includes about 2,400 of its own troops. The Polish government plans to scale back its presence in Iraq after elections there. Poland has lost 13 soldiers in Iraq.

The Polish woman’s abduction unfolded as Japanese officials were trying to win the release of tourist Shosei Koda, 24. Followers of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi have claimed responsibility for kidnapping Koda.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi immediately rejected the demand that Japan withdraw its troops but said his government was working to win Koda’s release.

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Special correspondent Ela Kasprzycka in Warsaw contributed to this report.

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