Six Jordanians kidnapped, Australia given 72 hours to withdraw from Iraq

An armed group in Iraq calling itself "al-Baraa Bin Malik groups" announced it holds 6 Jordanians working for the Jordanian Abu Jaafar al-Mansour company.

One of the kidnappers read a statement on al-Jazeera TV on Friday in which he warned the Jordanian companies from working with the American forces in Iraq.

The 6 Jordanians appeared carrying their passports while one of the kidnappers was directing his weapons towards them. The kidnappers statement indicated no demands.

Worthy mentioning that several Jordanian workers, most of them are truck drivers, were kidnapped in Iraq since the collapse of the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in April 2003, but many of them were released after a ransom was paid.

Meantime, "the Iraq's Mujahideen Shoura council" group which holds the Australian hostage Douglas Wood gave the Australian authorities a grace period of 72 hours in order to withdraw its 800 soldiers from Iraq. These soldiers are supposed to be reinforced by other 450 in the mid of this month.

This was expressed by the Australian hostage who appeared in a tape at al-Jazeera TV while he was besieged by two gunmen.

The Australian prime minister John Howard announced on Friday that Douglas Wood ( 63 year old) is still alive while the papers in Sydney said that one of the influential Sunna scholars interfered with the kidnappers to rescue the Australian hostage.