Tape Threatens Four Iraq Hostages

An Iraqi militant group threatened to kill three kidnapped Romanian journalists and their Iraq-American translator unless Romanian troops leave Iraq within four days, Al Jazeera reported Friday. The station aired a video showing the four captives, held since last month.

The video showed the three Romanians — two men and a woman — sitting cross-legged against a black background with their hands chained. A hand is seen on the right of the video pointing a pistol at the hostages.

Reporter Marie Jeanne Ion, sitting between her two colleagues, is seen talking and gesturing with her hands to the camera. Al-Jazeera did not air the audio.

The footage then shows a man who appears to be Iraqi-American Mohammed Monaf, sitting alone with his hands also bound. He is also talking, but there is no sound. Gunmen stand on either side of him, pointing an automatic rifle and a pistol at his head.

There was no independent confirmation of the tape's authenticity, but relatives and colleagues of both Ion and Romania Libera newspaper reporter Ovidiu Ohanesian identified them from the footage.

In other developments:

A group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq posted a video on the Internet showing militants capturing and shooting the lone survivor after shooting down a Mi-8 helicopter. The group posted a video showing burning wreckage and bodies, as well as gunmen discovering a man in high grass and shooting him. The man was identified as pilot Lyubomir Kostov, according to Mihail Mihailov, the manager of Heli Air, the Bulgarian company that owned the helicopter. He said he saw the video on the Internet and that Kostov was his main pilot. A spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq said a U.S. medevac team arrived at the site within half an hour of receiving the report of Thursday's crash and found no survivors.

Blackwater Security Consulting identified six guards responsible for protecting U.S. diplomats who were killed Thursday in the helicopter shootdown. A seventh Blackwater guard was killed near Ramadi when a bomb exploded next to one of the company's armored personnel carriers. It was the bloodiest day of the Iraq conflict for the company, which is employed by the U.S. government for tasks ranging from the personal security for diplomats to protection for aid convoys. Moyock-based Blackwater identified those killed aboard the helicopter as Robert Jason Gore, 23, of Nevada, Iowa; Luke Adam Petrik, 24, of Conneaut, Ohio; Eric Smith, 31, of Waukesha, Wis.; David Patterson, 27, of Havelock; Jason Obert, 29, of Fountain, Colo.; and Steve McGovern, 24, of Lexington, Ky.

Meanwhile, a second group also claimed responsibility for shooting down the helicopter. Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera, broadcast video Friday that it said was from a group calling itself the Mujahedeen Army in Iraq that showed the helicopter crashing to the ground and claiming it shot it down Thursday. The video shows a helicopter flying about 100 feet above the ground. The camera suddenly shakes, swinging down to show the ground near the cameraman's feet — apparently as the missile hits the helicopter. When the camera view rights again toward the sky, the helicopter is in flames, arcing toward the ground with a pall of black smoke trailing behind it. No missile or impact of a missile on the craft is seen. On the right side of the video is a logo of the Mujahedeen Army, and along the bottom the date "21 April 2005" is written in Arabic.

A car bomb exploded during Friday prayers at a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, killing eight people and wounding 20, police said. The car bomb exploded at the Al-Subeih mosque, in the capital's eastern New Baghdad neighborhood, said police Col. Ahmed Aboud. One section of the mosque collapsed, and frantic worshippers in blood-spattered clothes searched through the rubble for loved ones, as wailing women beat their chest in grief. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

In northern Iraq, a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. Army patrol Friday, killing one soldier and wounding another, the military said. The early morning attack happened north of Tal Afar, a city about 90 miles east of the Syrian border, which has seen frequent clashes between U.S. and Iraqi forces.

In Washington, the Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved $81 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a spending bill that would push the total cost of combat and reconstruction past $300 billion. The Pentagon says it needs the money by the first week of May, so Senate and House negotiators are expected to act quickly to send the president a final bill.