The captors of the British-Irish woman threatened
Tuesday to deliver her to Iraq's most ruthless band of kidnappers, who have
already beheaded a string of foreigners, unless their demands were met in 48
hours.
Britain has made no public response to the threat, which came as hundreds of
British soldiers settled into a new base outside Baghdad on a US-requested
mission to free up US soldiers for an anticipated assault on other hotspots.
Hassan, the head of leading charity CARE International in Iraq, is one of the
highest-profile victims in a scourge of kidnappings that has plagued the
country.
The 59-year-old, who has spent 30 years in Iraq and is married to an Iraqi,
has appeared in three videos since her abduction in Baghdad on October 19.
Her condition has deteriorated with each viewing and Arabic television
network Al-Jazeera opted against airing much of the most recent images on
Tuesday due to the "condition of the hostage".
In the video, the kidnappers pledged to turn Hassan over to Zarqawi unless
Britain pulled its 8,500 troops out of Iraq within 48 hours.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and three of Hassan's sisters made a joint
appeal for the aid worker's release following the threat, while CARE's
Australian branch, which employs her, also begged anew for her freedom.
Despite being born in Ireland and raised in Britain, Hassan has dedicated her
life to helping the people of Iraq, where --through her husband -- she has
citizenship and is even said to speak Arabic with an Iraqi accent.
Her kidnapping triggered outrage in Iraq, which she calls home.
On October 25, hundreds of disabled Iraqis on crutches and in wheelchairs
begged for Hassan's release, saying their lot has worsened since her abduction.
Gathered outside the now shuttered Baghdad office of CARE International, many
clutched photographs of the aid director, who appeared on a videotape three days
earlier urging British troops to leave Iraq to save her life.
"Please help me, please help me, these might be my last hours," a sobbing
Hassan said on the tape broadcast by Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite
television.
"Please the British people ask Mr Blair to take the troops out of Iraq and
not to bring them here to Baghdad. That's why people like Mr Bigley and myself
are being caught and maybe we will die. I will die like Mr Bigley," she said.
Zarqawi's Al-Qaeda Group of Jihad in the Land of Two Rivers (Iraq) beheaded
Bigley last month after he was abducted in Baghdad in September with two US
contractors. They also met the same grisly fate.
Although several other foreign women have been kidnapped in Iraq most have
been released and none have been beheaded.
A large question mark hangs over the fate of a Polish woman, also married to
an Iraqi, who was abducted late last month.
Teresa Borcz, 54, has appealed to Poland to withdraw its troops from Iraq --
a requst that Warsaw has refused.
Some 160 foreigners have been seized since April, and more than 30 of them
have been killed by their captors.