Iraqi kidnappers make demands for two hostages

In the grainy footage, a pale woman in a blue veil clutches her weeping son and pleads for their lives.

In the video, posted Saturday on the Internet, an Iraqi insurgent group threatens to kill the two German citizens within 10 days unless Germany withdraws its forces from Afghanistan.

The tape shows the woman, identified as Hannelore Marianne Krause, sitting on the floor with eyes downcast next to her bearded, adult son. Three masked insurgents are also shown, two of them pointing guns at the hostages’ heads.

Krause first addresses German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Please help us,” she says, speaking in German as an Arabic translation scrolls over the screen. “These people want to kill my son before my eyes, and then me, if the German troops do not withdraw from Afghanistan.”

She then appeals to the German public to press the government to meet the insurgents’ demands.

“Don’t keep us here, I beg you,” she says. “I am afraid.”

A gunman, who identifies himself as a member of the previously unknown Brigades of the Arrows of Righteousness, demands that the German government comply, “otherwise you will not even see the dead bodies of the two agents.”

A close-up of Krause’s German passport is also shown.

Details of the abduction remain sketchy and the authenticity of the video could not be independently confirmed.

The German government confirmed last month that the two had disappeared Feb. 6, but released no other details.

German newspapers have reported that Krause, 61, is married to an Iraqi physician and has lived in Iraq for more than 20 years. Her son’s name and age have not been released.

Germany opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has no troops stationed here. However, it contributes to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s force in Afghanistan.

The video was posted the day after the German parliament agreed to send six to eight Tornado jets for reconnaissance missions with 500 crew and support personnel. Germany has about 3,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan’s relatively peaceful north.

The German Foreign Ministry has set up a crisis committee to deal with the hostage situation.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters that the video was a “devastating document” and said Berlin would do everything possible to secure the hostages’ release, wire services reported.

But Eckart von Klaeden, a foreign policy expert with Merkel’s party, said that “the federal government must not allow itself to be blackmailed.”

More than 400 foreigners have been abducted in Iraq by insurgents and criminal gangs, many of them for ransom. Thousands of Iraqis also have been seized.

zavis@latimes.com

Times staff writer Christian Retzlaff in Berlin contributed to this report.