Unlike the 3 US contractors who were kidnapped in central america, our british guys have little hope of rescue from the government.

I feel sorry for them

graham, uk,

.... weapon systems are constructed under various licenses all over the world many are captured and many are recontructed and copied especially in regions of afghanistan as for arm chair dreamers you really need to get out more if all your talking about is an assault rifle , the reason i use that term is because its irelavant when you work in my enviroment they all do a tremendous amount of damage to your body.... variants can also be broken down even further to the manufacturer ie FN , .... again its irrelavant.. thoughts are with "the Five"

leon, london, uk

I'm more interested in the life of this man and his family. Pity he isn't important enough to have been given the media (and government) attention that each and every one of us deserve should we, God forbid, find ourselves in his situation.

Farrukh, Woking, UK

MMM...for all you conspiracy theorists (seems to be mainly the Americans for some reason - I am not going to get drawn into why I think that is) there are a lot of M16's out there - they are not just limited to the US and Israel. Admitedly they probably all come from the USA but i hate to mention it but the IRA, also a terrorist faction were armed with the M16.

Hang on heres a conspiracy for you - The IRA were armed by guns and donations from the US-M16s included, and the US have a history of arming terrorists - they armed and trained Bin Laden and his posse in Afghanistan, so maybe this terrorist organisation is also financed by the US?!! Maybe the whole war in Iraq is staged??

Or maybe not - maybe they just got the M16 and the ammo from one of the many who have been sent to their death in an invasion which didnt properly think through about what to do with the country once they toppled Saddam. This believe it or not is real I have no idea what world the theorists come from

Rich Mathews, Edinburgh, Lothian

Let's stop arguing and just get them home. I have a picture of myself standing over a VC holding an AK in my hands, too, from 1971. It was a trophy, for heaven's sake, not an identifier of my political allegience. This has gone on far enough.

Make the trade. Bring them home. And let's get the heck out of there before worse things happen.

James P, Sacramento, California

Sir,
Were these weapons taken from our own armed "security contractors" i.e. mercenaries? It is quite a drastic situation if our "US-backed" Shi'ite Iraqi allies are leaking the latest M-16s to the "Iranian-backed" militants?

SC, London, United Kingdom

I have to say that my opinion of the US is going down hill as I read MOST of the comments posted below by Americans. It seems like British and US CITIZENS are so different. We don't care about your conspiracies we just want these guys home!! THIS IS REAL and I hope that none of these idiots who are going on about conspiracy theories ever have to go through what the hostages or their families are going through just now.

Lara, Bristol, UK

Ummmm... Real insurgents wouldn't be holding M-16's. Why? Because even the US is finding it hard to get ammo for the damn things. Even all the arms we supplied to other county's were AK's(except Israel) because only 2 countrys have factories to make ammo for the things, the US and Israel, nobody else. The enemy ALWAYS leaves the M-16 lying on the battlefield for that very reason.

And anyone with more brains than God gave a box of rocks knows that "posing" with a weapon is waaaayyy different that getting a picture of a hostage. If your grandfather had been holding that P38 against the head of an American Soldier, then he might be a Nazi.

People should engage their freakin' logic before thinking actual an guerilla enemy wants to carry extra DEAD weight just to "pose" with it.

Mark, Owego, NY

Why would the CIA use US, M16's to try and fool the world?

Their weapons show they have what they need to wage war on the modern military...

Darren, Teesside, UK

STOP with the conspiracy theories you idiots. Jason is a friend of mine and a workmate. He is ex British army. This is not a fake video. Think about his parents and his 3 year old daughter. Are you gonna tell his daughter that hes not really been missing since 29 May 2007! Stop reading soldier of fortune and watching Rambo films. This is real, so have some respect for this guy who was only trying to earn money to support his family.

Dougie, Nienburg , Germany

Obviously they still believe that they can fool the public with stuff like this. They have NO IDEA how hip we are to their charades.

Joe Schmo, East Jabip, USA

Don't be hasty in your judgements people, otherwise you only find the answers that you desire, not necessarily the answers that are true.

Do you see the makers mark on the rifles? If not then you don't know for a fact that they are M-16's. Ever heard of an AR15?

Anyways, critical thinking means you must stay objective, and I see little of that happening.

Charlie, SF,

Let's face it there is a conspiracy against Iran by the US Administration so why not try to blame them for the mess in Iraq. We are led to believe that ALL the terrorists in Iraq are funded by Iraq. So why no outcry when most of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis? It's strange too that Osama bin Laden manages to pop up with a new video each time Bush needs a boost in the polls - watch out for his Christmas message - should be coming soon! Perhaps General Petraeus can't tell an M-16 from an AK-47 - bit worrying that.

George, Glasgow, UK

OMG, the conspiracy theorists are out in force, all of them, as usual, knowing more than everyone else, up to and including world leaders, about what's happening in the Middle East, despite not being here.
And does anyone really believe it's that hard to get hold of an M16 in this region, especially in Iraq? What planet are they living on?
Oh, and Jason, I'm married to a Palestinian, I live in the Middle East; believe it or not, many ,if not most Arabs, though tanned, are white - Arabs are categorised as Caucasian. There are even ginger/ blond, blue-eyed Arabs too - Arabs are 300 million-plus people, they are not some homogenous, identical mass!

Ruth , Hawalli , Kuwait

Sounds like another false flag to me. Only U.S. and Israelis use M-16s. It isn't like the UK wasn't leaving already. Come on folks. Remeber the Lavon Affair? The list of false flag attacks by US and Israelis CIA/Mossad goes to the stars.

ROBERT, San Antonio, usa/Texas

Regarding the M16s, remember that the culture of terrorism is propaganda, machismo and coup. So first, everything in a video must be taken as posed. There is obviously no real need for anyone with a gun to be in the frame, so it's a pose. Posing with captured or stolen "trophy" weapons is also effective propaganda for counting coup.
The object of these videos, beyond any demands, is to appear to the world holding a weapon for the effect of appearance to the head of someone defenseless. The message is not that they have captives, but in instead a broadcast psychological threat, "This is you if you don't listen", and therefore should not appear in the media where it will have the desired effect.

Dan, Oxford, UK

Funny how everyone is saying, "They have m16s that means it's a set up". Learn your history you fools. The United States sold hundreds of thousands of weapons to Iran during the various years they were "allied" with them. Operation Ajax, The Iran- Contra scandal. No, these weapons came from Iran. We gave them to them 30 years ago.

Austin, Allentown,

Furriskey, I couldn't agree more. While these poor men have indeed been forgotten -conveniently by our government - these idiots are waffling on with their conspiracy theories - shameful!

Liz, London,

My grandfather was a tank commander with the Coldstream Guards Armoured division in WW2.

I have picture of him, taken in Normandy in July 1944. In it, he's holding a Walther P38 pistol.

He must have been a Nazi all this time - and I never knew!!!

Dear heavenspeople, engage brains before posting.

(You might want to take your tin foil hats off, too).

Sane, Doncaster, UK

Sorry to spoil your fantasies, Jason, but Arabs are white, not black.
As for the M16, the IRA had plenty of those too. Are you suggesting that terrorists only use Commie weapons? Afraid not.
Do you know how many M16s have 'gone missing' in Iraq since the invasion? They aren't hard to come by.
(Israeli troops generally use the Galil. If they were doing a black op they would have used AK 47s. They have plenty of them.)

Furriskey, Singapore,

What planet are you people on?????
This is real, not some staged set, get your heads out of your fantasy filled dreams. These kidnapped men are real, they have been missing for nearly 7 months.
The fact the kidnappers are holding M-16 type weapons is irrelevant, the whole country is awash with weapons. Whilst your running about doing your arm chair conspiracy theorist bit, your country men are dying in droves over there and funnily enough leaving their weapons behind, or do you think Zarqawi was issued his M249?
The last thing the families of the hostages would want is you lot causing more problems by bad mouthing any of them.
Time for you sorry lot to crawl back under your stone again.

john, Leeds,

It is funny but the only people an idiot can fool are other idiots.

Anyone with any common sense can pick up on a staged psyop by looking at the picture or video closely and looking for clues. On some previous fake ones they had all the details down to the arab garb, at first glance it was convincing, but on closer inspection you can see that the guys are white, not dark skinned and the guys all had m-16s. Busted......

Jason, LA, California

wow those US army m16 rifles look out of place dont ya think?

stan, porth, wales

While we are nit picking details as to why Iraqi insurgents are using US Army issue M-16s, you might note that the name of the Italian journalist is not spelled correctly. It is Giuliana Sgrena (no "e" following the initial "s").

Further, there is far more to the story than her simply being released a month later. Sgrena and the two Italian intelligence officers who had helped secure her release came under fire, without warning, from U.S. forces at a roadblock while on their way to Baghdad International Airport. Nicola Calipari, a general in the Italian military intelligence service was killed, and Sgrena and one other officer were seriously wounded.

Sgrena, who writes for the Italian communist newspaper Il Manifesto and the German weekly Die Zeit, said later that the driver and the now dead intelligence officer had been in contact by phone with US officials, letting them know that she was on her way to the airport. The US Army denies this.

Ken Cruce, Chapala, Mexico

Interesting to note that the captors are holding US made M-16 automatic weapons....................

paul, beamsville, canada

Those look like American weapons in the hands of the gunmen. Do you suppose they might be Israelis making another fake "Al Qaeda" video? Just asking.

wafflehead, Nashville, TN

Hmmm, odd that these two supposed "Iraqi Insurgents" choose to equip themselves with the latest U.S. issue infantry rifles (the M16A2), when the most widespread in Iraq (as well as easiest to acquire, and find ammo for) is the AK-47....

Those Eye-Racky Insurgents are crazy like that! ;-)

Can you say "False-Flag Op" boys & girls? I knew you could!

U.S. Out Of Iraq!, nYc, USA

Where did they get those M16's??

More CIA/Mossad false-flag ops?

Gimme you freedom and i'll sell you out for Israel.

Jack Hoff, Plano, TX

A US General has recently expressed the opinion that Iran have been instrumental in securing Iraq and that there is no evidence that the Iranian Government are arming terrorists in Iraq, also pointing out that it would be selfdefeating for all party's involved.

We're already begun withdrawing or attempting to withdraw troops. The Iraqi people know this, and it's reasonable to assume that many groups within Iraq will know this too. Now that this message has come out, withdrawing troops will look like we're caving in to terrorist's demands.

They are holding "US army-issue M16 assault rifles".

Hmmmm... It's enough to make you scratch your head there, isn't it?

John, London,

Odd - the weapons look like M16s instead of AK47s.

Ken, Decatur,

General Petraeus said they were armed by Iran ??? hmmm...then why are they holding M-16s instead of AK-47s ? Someone trying to lie us into hating Iranians as well as Iraqis?

Dan, San diego, California