Attacks on universities in Iraq are threatened

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — A militant group threatened Wednesday to attack Iraqi universities if Iraqi authorities continued to permit women to study alongside men, according to a videotape broadcast on the Arab language Al-Arabiya television station.

The group calling itself the Islamic Jihad brigade in Iraq demanded that the Iraqi minister of higher education separate men and women at all schools and universities.

The authenticity of the video, which showed a masked man reading a statement and two gunmen, couldn't immediately be determined.

"You must isolate the men from women because of the immoral attitudes existing in the private and public universities," the man reading the statement said. "If this is going to be continue, we will hit the colleges and universities."