The story begins with a slave driver attempting to sell his latest finds, including a foreign captive known only as Lazar.

He cited reports from other foreign captives who had been held with Americans in Kuwait, citing grim conditions.

Many of those released withheld details of their experience for fear of provoking reprisals against other foreign captives.

One panel shows heroic Etruscans putting foreign captives to the sword.

For Mr. Hussein, foreign captives now appear to be his weapon of choice for countering the international quarantine that the United States has erected around him.

Even after the latest threats from Iraq, the White House still tried to sound a restrained note about the foreign captives.

Syria, with 40,000 troops in control of 75 percent of Lebanese territory, has assisted in freeing American and other foreign captives in the past.

Nonetheless, Cole's indictment of the way we have handled foreign captives is accurate and sears the conscience.

Reliefs and actual heads of foreign captives were also found placed within the temple perhaps in an attempt to symbolise the king's control over Syria and Nubia.

The reports were the first time that a number of Lebanese papers have simultaneously carried almost identical articles about the possible release of foreign captives.