Optimism fades for 3 hostages

Some foreigners have been freed, but not the Japanese.
TOKYO (AP) -- Optimism that three Japanese held hostage in Iraq would be quickly released evaporated today, as Tokyo's top government spokesman backtracked on an earlier statement and said authorities were no longer confident about their safety.
The Japanese are among a growing number foreign nationals kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents -- including a Mississippi man whose fate was also unclear and seven Chinese nationals seized by armed men Sunday.
Vice President Dick Cheney, who was in Tokyo on a weeklong Asia tour, promised Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that the United States would "do everything we can to be of assistance."
Demands of kidnappers
The Japanese hostages -- two aid workers and a photojournalist -- were being held by a previously unknown group calling itself the "Mujahedeen Brigades," which demanded that Japan pull its troops out of Iraq within three days or it would burn the three alive.
"At one point we were able to make the judgment from various perspectives that they [the Japanese] were safe, but now that's unconfirmed," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told a news conference.
His comments came in sharp contrast to official remarks the day before indicating the three hostages were about to be freed. Japanese press reports even said the military was getting transport planes ready to bring them home.
The hostages were taken amid a recent spate of kidnappings in Iraq, including the abduction of seven Chinese on Sunday. But some foreigners were also being released -- insurgents freed a Briton and said they were releasing eight other captives of various nationalities.
American snatched
The American, Thomas Hamill, 43, who works for a U.S. contractor in Iraq, was snatched Friday by gunmen who attacked a fuel convoy he was guarding. His captors threatened to kill him unless U.S. troops ended their assault on the city of Fallujah. The deadline passed Sunday morning with no word on his fate.
In Hamill's hometown of Macon in eastern Mississippi, he is known as a family man with a young son and daughter who took a job driving trucks in Iraq to make ends meet after his dairy farm took a hit.
Friends and neighbors gathered Sunday for a vigil outside the county courthouse to pray for his release.
"This is a small town. It hits us hard. God bless him, he's just trying to make a living for his family," longtime resident Marion Gilbertson said.
"I'm just praying," said his grandmother, Vera Hamill.
His work
Hamill works for the Houston-based engineering and construction company Kellogg, Brown & amp; Root, a division of Halliburton, his wife, Kellie, told The Associated Press.
James Jones, who went to high school with Hamill, said financial reasons prompted his friend to go to Iraq. He returned briefly a few weeks ago when his wife had open-heart surgery.
"We're just all pulling together for this man," said Mayor Dorothy Baker Hines, one of several hundred residents gathered for the night vigil outside the Noxubee County Court House.
China appealed today to Iraqi authorities to rescue the hostages and urged its citizens to avoid Iraq.
The group entered Iraq from Jordan on Sunday and was taken later in the day in Fallujah, the Foreign Ministry said on its Web site. State television said the hostages, ages 18 to 49, didn't work for China's government or a state company.
Japanese hostages
For the Japanese hostages' families, the uncertainty was taking its toll.
"The anxiety is overwhelming," said Takashi Imai, the father of the youngest of the three hostages, 18-year-old Naoki Imai. "I know the troops are in Iraq to make a contribution -- but so is our son. They can't just let him be killed."
Imai, who graduated from high school last month, is a member of a group trying to raise awareness about the health hazards facing civilians in Iraq from depleted uranium munitions used by U.S. troops. Another hostage, 34-year-old Nahoko Takato, worked with street children in the war-ravaged country. The third hostage is a free-lance photojournalist.
Koizumi has staunchly refused to consider the withdrawal demand, a position lauded by Cheney.
"We wholeheartedly support the position the prime minister has taken with respect to the question of the Japanese hostages," Cheney told reporters today.