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| Iraq |
| British rescue captured drivers |
| 2003-03-31 |
| TWO Kenyan truck drivers feared dead after being captured by Iraqi forces and shown on television have been rescued by British troops near a southern Iraqi town. David Mukaria and Jakubu Kamau had been gagged and blindfolded, and repeatedly listened to their captors discuss whether they should be allowed to live. "I remember seeing a man with his finger on the pin of a grenade as they argued about whether they would kill us or not," said Kamau, a 37-year-old from Nairobi. "I was sure we were going to die." The pair were ambushed by 20 Iraqi guerrillas, and were shown on the Arabic satellite network Al-Jazeera in the same broadcast that displayed the bodies of two dead British soldiers. They had been contracted to carry food and supplies for the US military, they said. Mukaria, 53, said: "They (the Iraqis) had guns and weapons but wore civilian clothes and we couldn't believe they kidnapped us when we were trying to deliver food and water to them. Every minute was terrifying." British troops from the Black Watch regiment today burst into an abandoned school near Al-Zubayr where the pair were being held after getting a tip-off from local townspeople. Corporal Stewart Robson, who took part in the rescue, said: "We knew nothing about the two missing aid workers until we were told to go and get them after getting a tip-off on their location. The Iraqis had gone by the time we got there." The pair said they thought their Iraqi captors had fled two days before. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |