Captors demand British troops' exit to prevent hostage going to al-Zarqawi

By RAWYA RAGEH
The Associated Press

MUHANNAD FALA'AH / GETTY IMAGES Margaret Hassan, the aid worker kidnapped in Iraq, is seen in this image from an undated video aired on Al Jazeera.

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Al Jazeera broadcast only the portion of the video that showed a hooded gunman but did not air the sound. The newscaster said the kidnappers gave Britain 48 hours to meet their demands, "primarily the withdrawal" of British troops.

Otherwise, Hassan, 59, will be handed over to al-Qaida in Iraq, a group headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. His followers have beheaded at least six hostages: three Americans, a Briton, a Japanese and a South Korean. The United States has offered a $25 million reward for al-Zarqawi's capture or killing.

In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair's office and the British Foreign Office both declined to comment on the reported demand. Britain has 8,500 troops in Iraq, the second-largest contingent after the United States.

Word of the tape first came from Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who told his Parliament it showed the Dublin-born Hassan pleading for her life directly to the camera before suddenly fainting, according to the British news agency Press Association.

Ahern, who had not seen the video, said a bucket of water is then thrown over Hassan's head and she is filmed lying wet and helpless on the ground before getting up and crying, PA quoted him as saying.

Ahern described the text of the video as "distressing" and said "there were a number of very dangerous and very serious timescales stated."

Al Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout said from Doha, Qatar: "Yes, we have received a tape, but we decided not to air it because we believe it's too graphic."

It was the first time a deadline was set in Hassan's abduction.

Hassan, an Irish-British-Iraqi citizen who heads CARE International in Iraq, was abducted last month from her car in Baghdad. No group has claimed responsibility for her kidnapping and there was no sign on the broadcast identifying who held her.

Her captors previously released three videos of Hassan, and in two of them she pleads for her life, saying she fears she will be beheaded. But she does not say when, and none of her kidnappers have appeared in any of the tapes.
 
Earlier yesterday, Ahern met Hassan's three sisters and issued a joint appeal for her release. Standing beside Ahern, Hassan's sister, Deirdre Fitzsimons, addressed her captors directly.

"We are the Irish family of Margaret and we are pleading with you to set her free," she said.

Ahern, whose country is militarily neutral and officially opposes the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, stressed that Hassan was a particularly inappropriate target.

"Margaret has no political associations. She represents nobody but the vulnerable and the poor," Ahern said. "Your quarrel is not with Margaret. Nor is it with the Irish people, who have been a firm friend of the Arab nations."

The al-Zarqawi group has cultivated a reputation for brutality. Yesterday the group posted video footage of the beheading of Shosei Koda, the Japanese backpacker whose body was recovered in a field last week wrapped in an American flag. Japan's government had rebuffed demands to withdraw the 550 troops it has in southern Iraq doing reconstruction work.

The claim was accompanied by a gruesome video showing the young Japanese, whose body was found Saturday in Baghdad, being beheaded on an American flag.

U.S. embassy officials said they had no word on an American civilian kidnapped from a Baghdad house at dusk Monday. The unidentified man was abducted along with a Nepalese, a Filipino and three Iraqis by a gang of at least a dozen attackers.

Two Iraqi guards were released after kidnappers beat them and warned them against working for foreigners, police said. The captives are believed to work for a Saudi company that caters food for the Iraqi army. "No one's claimed responsibility or made any demands," an embassy spokesman said.

The U.S. military denied an Iraqi police report that insurgents had captured a U.S. soldier in Samarra.

Twelve Americans have been kidnapped or are missing in Iraq. At least three of them have been killed — all beheaded by al-Zarqawi's group.