AQIM just issued a statement showing a picture of the hostages and their scanned passports. The women has been – as in the past with female hostages – been made unrecognizable in the pictures.
As in the case of the kidnapped Austrians, the full names are stated and in addition the passports of the victims have been scanned and published as well in AQIM’s statement that was issued via their media arm al-Andalus.
Kidnapped on 18 December 2009, as a reaction “to the crimes of the government of Berlusconi arriving in the center of Islam and of Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq” and while “the Italian people vow to continue their support the new occupational crusader wars against our territory and to wage war against our sacrosanct sites.”
The Mujahidin demand for their release that the Italian people exercise pressure on their government…
And to the crusaders they say that “your security and the safety of your citizens is bound to our umma and to the safety of our Muslim brothers”.
The statement is dated to the 26th of December 2009.
Taken from the majority jihadist forums:
Above another al-Andalus video is being advertised for and will be published shortly. Below that the headline linking to AQIM’s statement followed by a al-Furqan reaction to the Somali jihadist announcement of having created their own (another one…) media department al-Kata’ib.
The recent attempted attacks in the US is shown, linking to a number of postings by sympathizers who react.
Online Jihad: Monitoring Jihadist Online Communities 