The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has requested the Sri Lanka mission in Lebanon to obtain further details on the report that a Sri Lankan was among two persons taken hostage by the Islamic Army in Iraq.
When contacted, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said the were awaiting a report from Lebanon as Sri Lanka did not have a mission in Iraq since the war broke out there.
However, an AFP frame grab from a video tape aired on October 28 by Arabic satellite network Al-Jazeera shows Sri Lankan driver and his Kuwaiti driving license in the name of Dinesh Rajaratnam.
AFP quoting Al-Jazeera television reported yesterday that the Islamic Army in Iraq had abducted a driver from Sri Lanka and another from Bangladesh who work for a Kuwaiti company.
The AFP report added: "Al-Jazeera quoted a statement from the group saying "the two hostages were abducted before driving their trucks into a US base in Iraq."
They were being interrogated "in the religious (Islamic) court," it added.
A video bearing the name of the extremist group showed each of the presumed hostages separately and a number of identification documents, including a Kuwaiti driving license.
However, Sri Lankan officials said the footage was insufficient for them to make a positive identification of the man.
The Islamic Army in Iraq kidnapped French journalists Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale and Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaper south of Baghdad on August 20 along with their Syrian driver, Mohammed al-Jundi.
It also kidnapped and executed an Italian journalist.
Drivers have been a favourite target of extremist groups in Iraq, who have taken many truckers hostage in a bid to force their companies out of Iraq, accusing them of ferrying supplies to US forces. In some cases, ransoms have been paid to secure the release of hostages."
