A delegation of prominent British Muslims is expected in Baghdad on Sunday as frantic last-ditch efforts to save the life of Ken Bigley, the 62-year-old engineer seized by Islamic militants in the city 10 days ago, reached a climax.
The kidnappers, from a group responsible for dozens of recent bombs and kidnappings in Iraq, are threatening to kill Bigley unless women prisoners held in Iraq are freed, but have set no deadline. The group, known as al-Tauhid wa-al-Jihad (Unity and Holy War), has already beheaded two Americans abducted with Bigley.
Bigley’s relatives made fresh appeals for his release on Saturday, emphasising the family’s Irish roots. Terry Waite, the former Church of England envoy who was held hostage in Lebanon for five years, visited the family at home in Liverpool.
‘The strain of these situations on the family is considerable,’ Waite said. ‘I was able to tell them that when you are a hostage and standing at the point of death you find inner-strength you did not think you had and I’m pretty sure that is what Ken will have found.’
The diplomatic moves came as American jets, tanks and artillery units struck the insurgent stronghold of Falluja, west of Baghdad, yesterday, killing at least eight people and wounding 15, including women and children, according to Dr Dhiya al-Jumaili, of Falluja General Hospital.
Meanwhile in Baghdad, gunmen killed six recruits to the new Iraqi National Guard, police said. Five mortar shells also struck the Iraqi Oil Ministry, causing minor damage, and Iraqi security forces skirmished with rebels to its south.
The US military said the Falluja strikes targeted a meeting point in the centre of the city for fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of the al-Tauhid group.
‘Intelligence sources reported that Zarqawi terrorists were using the site to plan additional attacks against Iraqi citizens and multinational forces,’ a military spokesman said.
A US soldier was also killed when a homemade bomb exploded, though the American military would not release any further details.
Nothing has been heard from Bigley since he was seen pleading for his life in a video posted on an Islamic website on Wednesday. A posting on a different Islamic internet site yesterday claimed that a group linked to al-Qaeda had killed Bigley, but the Foreign Office said the claim did not appear credible.
The British deputation, comprising Daud Abdullah, a respected community leader, and, Musharraf Hussein, a senior scholar from the Muslim Council of Britain, arrived in Kuwait yesterday afternoon. The council’s secretary general, Iqbal Sacranie, said even in this ‘dire situation’ they still had hope.
Speaking on arrival at the airport in Kuwait, Abdullah said that he believed they could exert some influence on the kidnappers. ‘I believe and always maintain hope in the mercy of Allah,’ Daud Abdullah said.
The Muslim Association of Britain said it had made a direct appeal to the kidnappers on Arabic television station Al Jazeera for Bigley’s release.
More than 140 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq — some by anti-US insurgents and some by criminals seeking ransoms. At least 26 of them have been killed.
The British government said it had distributed 50 000 leaflets in Baghdad, at the request of Bigley’s family who want to exhaust all means possible to save him. An Iraqi company went round Baghdad on Thursday handing out the leaflet which had numbers for the British Embassy and local police.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is believed to have spoken to Bigley’s wife on Saturday to reassure her that everything possible was being done to secure her husband’s release. Bigley’s 86-year-old mother Lil, was taken to hospital yesterday suffering from stress. – Guardian Unlimited Â