“Islam does not preach violence and what the militants are doing is maligning the religion,” said Madani

DOHA , September 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Rejecting claims by kidnappers who associate themselves with Islamic names, prominent Algerian Islamist leader Abassi Madani took a practical action to enforce a basic principle of Islam: targeting civilians contravenes the tenets of Islam.

The ailing leader of Algeria 's banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) has vowed to continue the hunger strike he began Tuesday, September 14, “until death.”

“Islam does not preach violence and what the militants are doing is maligning the religion. They are playing in the hands of the enemies of Islam,” he told Al- Jazeera TV channel in an interview after he went on huger strike.

Madani, who has been living in exile in Qatar since last November, made the appeal for the release of all civilians held by the kidnappers in Iraq , chiefly two French journalists and two Italian aid workers.

“This is a humanitarian duty because it is a humanitarian battle. It would be wrong to confine it to political or ideological dimensions,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP) the same day.

This is the first time since the hostage crisis began in Iraq that a known Islamist from the Arab or Muslim world has gone on a hunger strike demanding the release of innocent foreigners held hostage in Iraq .

Immediate Release

The popular Algerian Islamist figure called on the allegedly Islamist kidnappers to “immediately free” the captives.

He stressed that the kidnappers “should listen to the voice of reason and release the hostages if they want to serve the just cause of Iraq .”

Simona Pari and Torretta were two Italian charity workers abducted along with two Iraqi co-workers by 20 men armed with AK-47 assault rifles and pistols from the office of their humanitarian organization, “A Bridge to Baghdad ” Tuesday, September 7.

It still isn't clear who abducted the aid workers or why.

But a statement posted on a Web site by a group calling itself “Ansar Al- Zawahiri", claimed responsibility and said the kidnapping marked “the first of our attacks against Italy .”

The group demanded that Italy withdraw its troops and “stop killing Muslims in Iraq and cooperating with American forces.”

Solidarity

Madani, who has been living in exile in Qatar since last November, received a visit from the leader of a French Muslim federation, Mohamed Bechari, who is on a regional tour to press for the release of the French journalists.

Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were abducted August 20 by a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq which demanded that France rescind its ban on the headscarf in state schools.

“Efforts to obtain the release of the two (French) hostages will not stop until the crisis is resolved,” Bechari, part of a delegation of French Muslim leaders who visited Baghdad earlier this month, has said.

Many Islamic leaders and groups across the Arab world have issued appeals for the release of the French and Italian captives.

Three More Hostages

Meanwhile, a team of kidnappers grabbed two Americans and a Briton in a dawn raid on their home on a leafy Baghdad street Thursday, September 16.

US officials confirmed that the three missing men were civilians working for Gulf Services Company, a Middle East-based construction firm.

The two Americans were named as Jack Hensley and Eugene “Jack” Armstrong.

“Unknown gunmen” had seized them from their residence in Mansour along with a British subject, the officials were quoted by the Guardian as saying.

“The US government is using all available means to locate them. The Iraqi government is also fully assisting,” said Vicki Stein, a spokeswoman for the US embassy in Baghdad .

A British diplomat in Baghdad was unable to confirm any details.

Witnesses told the British daily that a man in a van and another vehicle and group of men had pulled up outside the house waited.

“At 6 a.m. the power failed in our road. Two of the foreigners left their house and went into the street to start the generator,” said Bahar Salim, a 19-year-old student who lives nearby.

“These guys then grabbed the two foreigners. They then went into the house and pulled out the third westerner who had been sitting inside. No shots were fired. It was all over in minutes. I looked inside afterwards and saw that the computer was still running,” he added.

Released

Also Thursday, kidnappers released a Jordanian truck driver Thursday after his company declared it would stop working in Iraq , a Jordanian Foreign Ministry official said.

The truck driver's release came soon after militants freed a Turkish hostage, according to the Guardian.

The kidnappers were a group calling itself the “Brigades of Al-Tawhid Lions”.

On Thursday, Iraqi police said they had found a corpse north of Baghdad believed to be that of a western man dead for some days.