Militants Make Demands for Two French Hostages

The two French reporters kidnapped over a week ago are now being bartered by an Iraqi terrorist group. The Islamic Army of Iraq have demanded that the French government cease the Muslim headscarf ban in France within 48 hours. It's not clear what they will do if the ban is not lifted, but it's assumed they intend to execute the hostages, George Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaper and Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale.

I'm going to make a wild guess that when the Islamic Army kidnapped the Frenchmen, they didn't know they were French and they ended up in a quandary as to what to demand for their return. They couldn't demand that France remove their forces or other support for the war because there isn't any. So, I assume they've been spending the past week scratching their heads trying to figure out what to demand. Probably out of sheer luck, one of the murdering scum knew somebody who had read a newspaper who told them that France had banned headscarves in schools.

It's just a guess.