A new film of the kidnapped aid worker Margaret Hassan shows her kidnappers threatening to turn her over to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s group within 48 hours if British troops do not leave Iraq.
The tape was delivered to the Arab television station al-Jazeera, but it decided not to broadcast it on humanitarian grounds.
The Irish prime minister, Bertie Ahern, said ”a number of very dangerous and very serious timescales” were stated in the video, which reportedly shows her pleading for her life directly to camera before suddenly fainting.
A bucket of water is then believed to have been thrown over her head and she is filmed lying wet and helpless on the ground before getting up and crying. Ahern said he had seen the text of the video and described it as ”distressing”.
Zarqawi’s group, al-Qaeda in Iraq, has beheaded a number of hostages, including the British engineer Kenneth Bigley.
Hassan (59) who holds joint British, Irish and Iraqi citizenship, heads Care International in Iraq. She was seized outside her Baghdad home two weeks ago by unknown militants who have said they will behead her unless Britain withdraws its troops from Baghdad and authorities free all women prisoners in Iraq.
On Tuesday, Deirdre Fitzsimons, Hassan’s sister, who was accompanied by two other sisters and a brother at a meeting with Ahern, issued a plea to her kidnappers. ”We are the Irish family of Margaret and we are pleading with you to set her free.
”We have listened to your demands and begged Tony Blair and the British government to release the women prisoners and also not to move the troops,” she said. ”But we are Irish and we have no influence on the British government.”
Standing by their side, Ahern said: ”Margaret has no political associations. She represents nobody but the vulnerable and the poor. Your quarrel is not with Margaret. Nor is it with the Irish people, who have been a firm friend of the Arab nations.”
Ahern opposed the United States-led invasion of Iraq.
In London, the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, on Tuesday predicted that British Black Watch soldiers would face immediate repercussions if the expected imminent all-out assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah went ahead.
As car bombs continued to wreak havoc in Iraq’s major cities, with at least 10 people killed and more than 30 wounded in explosions in Baghdad and Mosul, Hoon said: ”If there is a significant operation against Fallujah there will be a significant change in the level of activity in the area that the Black Watch are currently occupying.”
Hoon told the Commons defence committee that the US had made no ”formal political request” for British military help. It was a military decision, he insisted, and his US counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld, did not even mention it to him at a Nato meeting a week before the deployment was announced.
US forces have been preparing for an all out assault to wrest control of Fallujah and Ramadi from insurgents but are said to be awaiting the order from Allawi.
On Tuesday the US army said it had carried out overnight airstrikes in Fallujah in which ”a known enemy cache site” had been destroyed. Hospital officials in Fallujah said one person was killed and six others were wounded. There were more fierce clashes in nearby Ramadi as a row broke out between US forces and Reuters news agency over the death a day earlier of cameraman Dhia Najim, who died while filming in the restive city.
The US military said in a statement that ”marines engaged several insurgents in a brief small-arms firefight that killed an individual who was carrying a video camera earlier Monday morning”.
But colleagues said they believed Najim had been killed by a US sniper long after skirmishes had stopped. – Guardian Unlimited Â