Group Threatens Captive’s Life

A little-known Iraqi militant group has threatened to kill a French engineer kidnapped in Iraq unless France ends what the group called its “illegitimate presence” in the Arab country, Al Arabiya television reported Wednesday.

The Dubai-based satellite channel aired a black-and-white video from a group calling itself Surveillance for the Sake of Iraq Brigade showing a man seated in front of militants pointing rifles at his head. The man identified himself as Bernard.

He gave no surname, but a French engineer who was later identified as Bernard Planche was seized Dec. 5 by gunmen in Baghdad.

Iraqi and French officials said Planche was an employee of a nongovernmental organization and worked at the Rusafa water treatment plant in eastern Baghdad.

The French government said at the time that it was doing its best to secure his release.

In the video, the man said in English: “I am Bernard. I am 52. I am from Lyon, France. I have been working ... as a water engineer for two years.” The channel dubbed his words into Arabic.

Al Arabiya television said, “The group called on the French government to end what it said was the illegitimate French presence in Iraq or else the hostage would be killed.”

The French Foreign Ministry called for Planche’s release and quoted Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy as saying that the Al Arabiya images were being examined.

France has no troops in Iraq and is not taking part in any form of police training. About 90 French citizens are in Iraq, about half of them working at the French Embassy.

There have been at least 15 kidnappings of foreigners in Iraq in the last three months, after a three-month lull in such abductions over the summer.