Yawn. The reliability of statements made at the Ansar.ws bulletin board has now dropped to nearly zero. Our in house experts have serious doubts as to the authenticity of this latest statement. Giuliana Sgrena was taken hostage last week. From day one our analysts have predicted Sgrena would be released unharmed and live to write about her 'ordeal'. This is the second time a group calling itself the Muhahadin Brigades has threatened to kill Sgrena if Italy did not withraw its troops. News24:

AN Islamist group which has claimed to be holding an Italian hostage in Iraq and threatened to kill her gave Rome 48 hours today to announce a troop pullout before disclosing the abducted journalist's fate.

“We give the Italian Government 48 hours to announce a withdrawal from Iraq and that is the condition for disclosing the fate of the Italian journalist called Giuliana Sgrena,” said the Organisation for Jihad in a statement posted on the internet.
“The mujahideen (fighters) are now addressing a new message to the Italian Government to say that keeping Italian forces in the Land of the Two Rivers (Iraq) will lead to a bloody war,” it said.

“And the criminal (Italian Prime Minister Silvio) Berlusconi and his government will not be happy as long as a single Italian soldier remains in the Land of the Two Rivers,” it said.

Posted by: Rusty at 03:16 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 233 words, total size 2 kb.