One of Ours

Arab television Al Jazeera showed the three Japanese, kneeling with their eyes bound with white cloth and surrounded by masked men holding rifles and also sitting on the floor without their bindings and talking to their captors. The walls of the room were riddled with bullets.

It said they had been taken hostage by a hitherto unknown Iraqi group called Saraya al-Mujahideen (Mujahideen Brigades).

"We tell you that three of your children have fallen prisoner in our hands and we give you two options — withdraw your forces from our country and go home or we will burn them alive and feed them to the fighters.", the group said.