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source: Reuters
BAGHDAD: An Islamist group has claimed responsibility for abducting three relatives of interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, and has threatened to kill them in 48 hours if US-led forces do not stop attacking Fallujah and start releasing Iraqi prisoners.
"If the puppet government does not meet our demands within 48 hours we will behead them," the Ansar al-Jihad (Holy War Followers) group said in a statement last night on a website used by Islamists. Its authenticity could not be immediately verified.
A spokesman for the Iraqi interim government confirmed that a first cousin of Mr Allawi, the cousin's wife and another family member were seized from their home in Baghdad on Tuesday morning.
Three cars with at least six armed men inside pulled up at the house in the southern district of Al-Kadisiya, from where they took Ghazi Allawi and two members of his family, a source close to Mr Allawi's Iraqi National Accord party said.
"With the help of God in this holy month (Ramadan) a unit of Ansar al-Jihad kidnapped three relatives of head of the Iraqi puppets, Allawi, may God burn him and slaughter him," the internet statement said.
The group demanded the release of all Iraqi prisoners and an end to the assault on the rebel city of Fallujah.
Mr Allawi ordered the US-led assault on Fallujah to rid the city of rebels and suspected foreign Islamist fighters before Iraq tries to hold an election in January.
Hundreds of Iraqis have been kidnapped by gangs in a wave of abductions in recent months. Most are released after the payment of ransom.
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