France anxious as truckers freed

Even as Islamic militants freed seven truck drivers from India, Kenya and Egypt on Wednesday, France awaited word on the fate of their two k...

Even as Islamic militants freed seven truck drivers from India, Kenya and Egypt on Wednesday, France awaited word on the fate of their two kidnapped reporters after a deadline for Paris to scrap a ban on Muslim headscarves passed without incident.

French, Muslim and Arab leaders clung to hopes that diplomatic efforts would save the lives of the French reporters — Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot. Malbrunot writes for the dailies Le Figaro and Ouest France and Chesnot is a reporter for Radio France Internationale. Their kidnappings have stunned France, which opposed the invasion of Iraq.

French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier left Egypt for Qatar, the fourth leg of a West Asia rescue mission.

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Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said on Tuesday he believed the deadline had been extended until Wednesday evening. There was no fresh word from the kidnappers, a militant group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq.

It has demanded France revoke a law banning the Muslim headscarf and other religious symbols in state schools. President Jacques Chirac has rejected the demands.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, insurgents fired mortars and rockets at a venue where the interim National Assembly was holding its first session.

Politician Ahmad Chalabi said a judge had informed him that counterfeiting charges against him had been dropped.

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Chalabi added that a warrant for his nephew Salem Chalabi, supervising Saddam Hussein’s trial, had been reduced to a summons. The elder Chalabi was speaking hours after gunmen opened fire on his convoy. —(Reuters)