JihadTV Shows Kidnapped Soldier
Charles Johnson
Fri Apr 16, 2004 at 2:41 pm PDT • Views: 157
JihadTV is once again gloating over the capture of an American soldier: Al-Jazeera Airs Video of US Soldier.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Arab television station Al-Jazeera aired footage Friday showing a 20-year-old U.S. soldier captured by insurgents, apparently unharmed and surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles.
The soldier, wearing camouflage and a floppy desert hat, is shown sitting on the floor as he identifies himself.
“My name is Keith Matthew Maupin. I am a soldier from the 1st Division,” he is heard saying in the video. “I am married with a 10-month-old child. I came to liberate Iraq, but I did not come willingly because I wanted to stay with my child.” …
Maupin looked scared and glanced downward occasionally during the tape. The gunmen, their faces covered by keffiyeh scarves, stayed behind him, in contrast to footage aired on Al-Jazeera last week of three Japanese hostages in which their kidnappers held knives to their throats as they screamed. The Japanese, two aid workers and a journalist, were freed unharmed.
On the tape, one of the gunmen was heard saying: “We are keeping him to be exchanged for some of the prisoners captured by the occupation forces.”
“Some of our groups managed to capture one of the American soldiers, and he is one of many others. He is being treated according to the treatment of prisoners in the Islamic religion and he is in good health,” the gunman said.
That last sentence is anything but comforting; at least one Islamist web site makes the case, using quotations from the Koran, that killing prisoners is permitted if it benefits the Muslims.
Frank says: