Kidnap Campaign Continues; Hussein May Face Trial Soon

BAGHDAD â€”  The kidnap and killing of truck drivers by Iraqi insurgents continued Sunday as at least four men were taken hostage and an Egyptian was found slain.

Insurgents calling themselves the Fallouja Mujahedin seized the four Jordanian drivers, accusing them of cooperating with U.S. forces, according to a videotape broadcast Sunday by the Arab-language satellite TV channel Al Jazeera.

A Turkish trucking company, Renay International, announced that it was pulling out of Iraq after one of its drivers, 48-year-old Mithat Civi, a father of three, was abducted and threatened with beheading, the Turkish news agency Anatolia said.

Iraqi insurgents have targeted truck drivers to choke off supplies to U.S. troops and private contractors involved in the reconstruction effort. Several companies have ceased operations in Iraq in response.

An Iraqi group that has claimed responsibility for several kidnappings, the Holders of the Black Banner, appeared on Al Arabiya TV on Sunday to ask a conservative group of clerics, the Muslim Scholars Assn., to issue a religious edict clarifying whether it was acceptable to kidnap occupiers. A spokesman told Associated Press that the group would consider the request.

Also Sunday, Iraqi officials reported the discovery of the body of an Egyptian man believed to have been kidnapped last month.

There was also no new information on the fate of two French journalists who disappeared last month. Reuters reported that a cleric in Iraq had issued a decree on Sunday calling for the release of the two men.

Meanwhile, State Minister Kasim Daoud told reporters at a news conference in Kuwait that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein could face trial in a “period of weeks,� much sooner than previously announced. But he offered no further details.

Judicial officials indicated at a pretrial hearing in July that it could take up to six months to review all the evidence. A quick trial seemed to become even less likely last month, when the man heading the case, Salem Chalabi, was named in an arrest warrant in a murder case. He was in Britain when the warrant was made public and apparently has not returned to Iraq.

Special correspondents Raheem Salman in Tikrit and Saad Sadiq in Najaf contributed to this report.