Filipinos Iraq

Nestor Ilarde's tale of terror is emblazoned on his jacket: "Iraq War Victim." Ilarde, a 35-year-old Philippine mechanic working in Kuwait, was caught in the middle when Iraq invaded Aug. 2. He saw three Egyptian friends shot to death, he had to walk 12 miles across the blazing desert when his car gave out and he abandoned all he owned to save his life. "Everything is lost," he said. "But I am alive."

Nestor Ilarde's tale of terror is emblazoned on his jacket: "Iraq War Victim." Ilarde, a 35-year-old Philippine mechanic working in Kuwait, was caught in the middle when Iraq invaded Aug. 2. He saw three Egyptian friends shot to death, he had to walk 12 miles across the blazing desert when his car gave out and he abandoned all he owned to save his life. "Everything is lost," he said. "But I am alive."

Al Jazeera television broadcast a videotape Wednesday of armed men holding a Filipino hostage and threatening to kill him if the Philippines did not withdraw its small force from Iraq within three days. The group claimed to have already killed an Iraqi security guard who was accompanying the Filipino, the satellite channel's newscaster said. The statement gave no details of the two men's abduction. In the video, three armed and masked men stood behind the seated hostage.

A growing number of Asian countries, forced to deal with thousands of impoverished refugees and financial losses of a billion dollars or more, are beginning to question the hard line the United States and other Western countries are taking in the Persian Gulf crisis, according to diplomats and other officials here.