| Hostage begs britain to pull its troops out { October 23 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/10/23/MNGKA9F73T1.DTLhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/10/23/MNGKA9F73T1.DTL
Hostage begs Britain to pull its troops out CARE official makes tearful plea on videotape - Karl Vick, Washington Post Saturday, October 23, 2004
Baghdad -- Kidnapped aid official Margaret Hassan, pleading for her life between terrified sobs, appeared on a videotape Friday urging British Prime Minister Tony Blair to abandon Iraq and not to assist the United States in preparing for an assault on Fallujah.
"Please help me, please help me. This might be my last hour," Hassan, the director of CARE International's operations in Iraq, said on the video delivered to the satellite television network Al-Jazeera. "Please, the British people, ask Mr. Blair to take the troops out of Iraq and not to bring them here to Baghdad."
Hassan, a native of Ireland who married an Iraqi and moved to Baghdad 30 years ago, was seized Tuesday morning outside the west Baghdad office of CARE. She is the best-known and highest-ranking aid official among the roughly 150 foreigners and Iraqis kidnapped here in recent months.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for her abduction. And unlike previous cases, no banners or armed, masked captors were visible on the video sent to Al-Jazeera.
In the video, Hassan said her abductors had linked her fate to the actions of Britain. The Blair government announced this week that it had agreed to a Pentagon request to shift troops from southern Iraq to an area just south of Baghdad to relieve U.S. troops needed for an assault on Fallujah.
"That is the reason behind kidnapping people like me and Mr. Bigley," Hassan said, referring to Kenneth Bigley, the British engineer whose beheading was broadcast on the Internet this month after he had made similar videotaped appeals to Blair.
"Please, please, I beg of you," Hassan said in a choked voice, before burying her face in a handkerchief. "I beg of you, please."
Blair's decision to redeploy the troops drew strong criticism from within his Labor Party, and Hassan's desperate appeal is likely to stoke opposition among the British public.
In a statement, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called the Hassan video "distressing" but offered no concessions.
"I have the greatest sympathy for what her family is suffering," Straw said. "Margaret Hassan has spent more than 30 years working for the Iraqi people. We hope all Iraqis will join us in calling for her immediate release."
The anguished tape of Hassan marked an escalation in the level of terror that hostage-takers have been able to inflict on foreign civilians in Iraq. More than 30 male hostages have been slain since April, and seven women had previously been taken hostage, all of whom were eventually freed.
In an interview with Fox News, Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi called Hassan's kidnapping a "tragedy" but added, "Nobody is going to ... give in to their demands."
"We have to remain very strong and adamant that we should bring the terrorists to justice," Allawi said.
Hassan's abduction was condemned Friday by Iraqis who said it could backfire for her unidentified assailants.
"If Margaret Hassan will be killed, it will be the last straw that will break the camel's back," said Hassan Jameel, a Baghdad University political science professor. "This abduction distorts not only the reputation of the resistance, but it distorts even the reputation of Islam. We don't accept this. We hope that these kidnappers will regain their sanity and release her immediately."
Hassan began working for CARE after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, though she has been involved in relief work for a quarter-century. She leads a staff of about 30 Iraqis who distribute medicine and medical supplies to hospitals and help restore access to clean water. Hassan was an outspoken critic of the sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations after the 1991 war.
The head of CARE International suspended the group's Iraq operations after Hassan's abduction.
Also on Friday, the Macedonian government confirmed that two Macedonian construction workers had been killed by militants. Al-Jazeera said Monday that it had received a videotape showing the beheadings of the two men. The militants had accused the hostages of spying for the United States, Al-Jazeera reported.
U.S. Marines, meanwhile, continued to probe the outskirts of Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, exchanging fire for a second day with insurgents who have held the city since April.
Sunni Muslim clerics warned that an assault on the city would risk widening the insurgency ahead of elections planned for January. U.S. and Iraqi officials say the election is the reason they have threatened to strike Fallujah, arguing it is crucial that voters in Iraq's Sunni triangle be included in balloting.
Talks aimed at a peaceful handover of Fallujah to Iraqi forces were disrupted by the interim Iraqi government's demand that city leaders give up foreign fighters led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian blamed for a number of kidnappings, beheadings, car bombings and other attacks.
In the northern city of Mosul, five American soldiers were injured in the bombings of two armored vehicles. The attacks followed a showdown between Iraqi national guardsman and insurgents outside a mosque that was suspected of harboring guerrillas, according to a U.S. Army official.
On Friday, tensions rose further as word spread of the arrest by U.S. forces of Abdul-Sattar Abdul-Jabbar, a prominent official in the Association of Muslim Scholars, which represents Iraq's Sunni clerics.
"We ask the government, what did Sheikh Abdul-Sattar do? Does he have al- Zarqawi?" asked a fellow cleric, Hareth Ubeidi, in a sermon at the Baghdad mosque where the association is headquartered. The group vociferously opposes the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq.
Muthana Hareth Dhari, the son of the association's leader, called the arrest "a dangerous escalation from the side of the occupier."
Chronicle news services contributed to this report.
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