Live Blogging - Allawi's Relatives Kidnapped

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's 75-year-old cousin Ghazi Allawi, the cousin's wife and their daughter-in-law were seized near their home in Baghdad on Tuesday, Allawi's spokesman said.

The previously unknown Ansar al-Jihad group said the hostages would die unless Allawi, "head of the Iraqi agents," halted the U.S.-led Falluja offensive and freed prisoners. - reuters.

Allawi's response;

"This is a terrorist act against the Iraqi people" ... " To prevent - all the tourists who have been coming to Iraq"

No I am not kidding. I swear. I am live blogging. I just heard that on the abc (paraphrased). "Tourists".

Lol. Those damn terrorists are responsible for every ill including jeopardising Iraq's burgeoning tourism industry. Everybody knows war is a hot attraction and has been drawing tourists to Iraq like bees to a honey pot. All war-torn tyrannised and imperially colonised populations will testify to the fantastic opportunities tourism provides for the disenfranchised. Just ask the Navaho. Or Cuba. Or half the Former Soviet Eastern Block.

You can make a killing posing with sawn-off kalashnikovs and hocking ex-regime trinketry in the streets. Ever since the wall came down tourists have been pouring into East Berlin's former Stasi headquarters.

Yes, Allawi has really hit the nail on the head. Tourism is surely the way for Iraq's economy to recover. If only those bloody terrorists would stop beheading the cash cow.