3/31/2005 1:08:00 PM GMT
An American citizen along with three Romanian journalists have been abducted in Iraq on Monday, the U.S. State Department confirmed Wednesday.
"We can confirm that an American citizen was taken along with the three Romanian journalists kidnapped in Iraq on Monday," State Department spokesman Steve Pike said.
"We call for the immediate and safe recovery of all hostages in Iraq, including the American citizen and the three Romanian journalists," Pike said, yet refusing to give any further details.
On Wednesday, Al Jazeera news channel aired a videotape showing three Romanian journalists and an unidentified man.
It hasn’t been confirmed yet if the fourth main who appeared in the video was the American hostage.
The Arab station said that an unknown militant group seized the four men on Monday but made no mention of any demands.
The four appeared sitting on a floor as two masked men stood pointing guns at them.
The three Romanians, identified as Marie Jeanne Ion, Sorin Dumitru Miscoci, and Eduard Ovidiu Ohanesian -- work for Prima TV, have been abducted Monday night.
Prima TV confirmed the three journalists were those who appeared in the hostage video. But it said it doesn’t know who was the fourth man.
The three hostages appealed for their freedom in the video released by their abductors.
They looked calm in the video. At one point, Ion looked into the camera and said in English, "We have been kidnapped."
She then said there had been reports their hostage-takers "asked for something in exchange for our freedom. This is not true."
The Romanian Foreign Ministry and the main intelligence service set up a team to investigate the incident.
The three Romanians were kidnapped during a visit by President Traian Basescu to Afghanistan and Iraq -- where Romania, a U.S. ally, sent about 800 troops to join the U.S.-led occupation.
Relatives of the Romanians -- Prima TV reporter Marie Jeanne Ion, 32, cameraman Sorin Miscoci, 30, and Romania Libera daily journalist Ovidiu Ohanesian, 37 -- appealed for their release.
"I implore you to free my sister," Ion's sister Ana Maria told Romanian television. "She is not guilty of anything."
Also Miscoci's mother, Elena, appealed for her son's release.
"I beg the kidnappers to let him live. He always wanted to be a journalist, he loved his job but I never realized it was so dangerous," she told the Ziua daily.
Meanwhile, the Romanian government crisis meetings.
"Please understand that Romanian state institutions all over the world are moving rapidly to resolve this case," Basescu told reporters.
After a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu asserted that the government had received no ransom demand.
The three Romanians were last heard from by the station Monday night during a telephone call that was broadcast while they were apparently being abducted, an executive said.
Also a cell phone text message was sent, saying: "Please call the embassy urgently," a reference to the Romanian embassy in Baghdad.
Bomb attacks kills 7
Two car explosions killed seven people in northern Iraq on Thursday, officials said.
An attack on a military checkpoint near Suleiman Beik, 60 miles south of Kirkuk, killed three Iraqi national guards and two civilians, a captain in the force said.
Also about 14 people were injured in an attack near a national guard base, said Captain Hussein Mohammadani.
In Samarra, another bomb attack beside an Iraqi army patrol killed two soldiers, officials said.
Anti-occupation fighters have stepped up their attacks targeting U.S. soldiers and Iraqi security forces, mostly in Baghdad.