From The Independent, with thanks to Ali Dashti:
The French government believes that two French journalists taken hostage in Iraq may have been taken to Syria with the connivance of authorities in Damascus. French officials would not comment officially yesterday but suspicions were confirmed by a senior politician and reported by the newspaper, Le Figaro, which employs one of the missing men.The paper suggested Syria's intervention was "cynical" and even hostile but could lead, paradoxically, to the release of Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, captured by a mysterious opposition group in Iraq 49 days ago.
The men are said to have been repeatedly moved around, with a final stop near Ramadi, in western Iraq before crossing into Syria, say sources in Muslim clerical circles in Baghdad.
It might now be easier for Paris to negotiate "state to state" with Syria than with small groups of hostage-takers with "changeable moods", the newspaper said.
François Bayrou, head of the centrist UDF party, said after a briefing on the hostage situation by the Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin: "The government has not excluded the possibility [that the hostages are in Syria] but it's not up to me to comment on that."
Le Figaro, in a front-page article signed by its deputy editor, Charles Lambroschoini, said intelligence sources in France and in the Arab world suspected Syria had intervened in the hostage crisis to "punish" Paris for supporting an anti-Syrian resolution in the UN Security Council. The newspaper suggested Damascus has been largely responsible for the near-farcical events at the weekend in which a maverick member of the French parliament claimed he had succeeded in an independent mission to free the two and their Syrian driver-interpreter....
The French government is now said to suspect that the hostage-takers were not, as first thought, radical Islamists but former Baath party members, still loyal to Saddam. The hostage-takers are believed to be either under the influence of Damascus or to have actually transferred the hostages to Syrian control.
The French are being "punished for not supporting Syria in the Security Council.." Naughty dhimmis, not supporting your master. Indeed your deserve to be punished. (sarcasm off)
This is the wave of the future. Muslims have re-discovered that appealing directly to the public can lead to a favorable outcome. Hostage taking and beheadings will only become more numerous as long as governments and companies give in. Let's see if the French are going to show some backbone or are they going to terror enablers.
How does France dare to be independent from is owner?, shut up and humillate to us,
I hope France and other like-minded Muslim-appeasenik countries & people learn a lesson from this.
It's strange that only a few years ago the French were so concerned with protecting their own culture that they wanted to ban all Anglo-American words from newspapers and TV (I think 'hamburger' was one of the offending words!)
Yet there seems to be very little official resistance to islamisation. (Banning headscarves in schools was a faltering step in the right direction.)
Maybe Woody Allen and Jerry Lewis could be recruited to go over and give them a firm lecture on the perils of islam...
If only.
For a brief period I tried to see a sympathic
side to the middle east issues,but after seeing the France "Hijab" issue somehow morphing into a "Hostage" beheading industry to keep the area pure and rid it of infidels and non-Muslims.
I am now convinced that the Quran is inheirently
violent and Peace is through slaughtering all people that don't bow down to the Muslim god "Allah" . It's time to dust of the Nukes and show these murderous psychopaths that Islam is a threat to Humanity and personal freedoms,the Muslims in the West are either in denial of the true Islamic teachings,or part of the silent approval of terrorism as noted by the CAIR online petition against Terrorism that only has less then 700,000 signee's out of 5 Million Muslims in America.
I wouldn't be shocked to see Muslims being taken hostage in America and demanding they leave
the USA as occupiers for Allah's Jihad to make NorthAmerica an Islamic State.
What the hell did they think would happen to Mosques in America after people seeing little
condemnation from Muslims,the recent spate of vandalism is minor when compared to the bombing of Churches in Muslim Countries.
If all these terrorists quoting the Quran have nothing to do with Islam,then Islam has nothing to do with Muslims,they can't have it both ways.
NO ISLAM - KNOW PEACE
Well what a surprise to France.....they have just found out that they have just as much influence as every one else when it comes to hostages.
MORe about zeropeans from Barabara stock at Israpundit.
read it all
http://israpundit.com/archives/009061.html#more
Documents have been uncovered and translated that show clearly that Chirac was sharing intelligence that he obtained from his meetings with Blair of England and his phone calls with President Bush. In short, Chirac gave Saddam our battle plans, troops strengths and deployment as well as our weapons systems. Stockpiles of rockets and weapons of all kinds with French markings and sale dates have been found and many were delivered within months of the war.