Al-Jazeera television aired video footage Saturday it said was of a British and two American hostages, blindfolded and under threat of execution in 48 hours unless female Iraqi prisoners are freed. Members of Tawhid and Jihad, a group led by key suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, would kill the men in 48 hours unless the United States and Britain release Iraqi women detained at Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr prisons, al-Jazeera's announcer reported. British troops are stationed in Umm Qasr, in southern Iraq, and American forces still have a presence at Abu Ghraib, a prison near Baghdad that was the scene of a scandal involving U.S. soldiers sexually abusing male prisoners. Fears about treatment of women inmates have multiplied since then. The video was the first word on the men, said to be Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong and Briton Kenneth Bigley, since their abduction early Thursday. An armed militant held his rifle pointing downward at the head of one of the three men, who were blindfolded, seated and appeared to be unharmed. Al-Jazeera, a Qatar-based Arab satellite news station, showed only a brief clip, without audio although two hostages appeared to be speaking.
