The kidnapped director of Care International in Iraq appeared on a videotape broadcast on Friday, weeping and pleading with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw troops from Iraq ”and not bring them to Baghdad” because ”this might be my last hour”.
The appeal by Margaret Hassan was aired by the Arabic television station Al-Jazeera three days after she was abducted by gunmen on her way to work in western Baghdad.
”Please help me,” she begged. ”This might be my last hour. Please help me. The British people, tell Mr Blair to take the troops out of Iraq and not bring them here to Baghdad. That’s why people like myself and Mr Bigley have been caught. Please, please, I beg of you.”
British hostage Kenneth Bigley was decapitated on a video posted on October 10 on an Islamist website. Hassan, an Irish-British-Iraqi national who has lived in Iraq for 30 years, said she does not want to ”die like Bigley”.
An editor at Al-Jazeera, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the network received the tape on Friday but refused to say how or where. He said the tape includes only Hassan’s statement.
The tape does not include any claim of responsibility nor does it show any of the kidnappers.
Bigley’s murder was claimed by the Tawhid and Jihad group of Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, blamed for numerous car bombings and beheadings of foreign hostages in Iraq.
The United States military believes al-Zarqawi is based in Fallujah, the insurgent stronghold west of the capital.
On Thursday, Blair’s government agreed to a US request to transfer a battalion of British soldiers to the Baghdad area to relieve American troops who will be used in offensive operations west of the capital. — Sapa-AP
British aid worker held in Iraq