BAGHDAD, Oct 22: A weeping British-Iraqi hostage pleaded for her life in a video broadcast on Friday as British troops prepared to move nearer Baghdad before an expected US-led offensive against guerillas before January elections.
"Please help me, please help me," Margaret Hassan, who works for aid agency Care International, said on the video shown on the Al Jazeera television. "This might be my last hour." She urged Britons to tell Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw British troops from Iraq.
"Maybe ... I will die like Mr Bigley," Irish-born Margaret Hassan said before collapsing in tears. She was referring to British hostage Kenneth Bigley, beheaded by his captors this month.
Al Jazeera did not name the group holding Mrs Hassan, who has lived in Iraq for 30 years and has Iraqi as well as British citizenship. She was seized in Baghdad on Tuesday.
Mrs Hassan is the eighth foreign woman to have been kidnapped in Iraq since April. The others, including two Italian aid workers held for three weeks last month, have been released.
The video surfaced the day after Britain announced it would move 850 troops from their relatively safe base in southern Iraq to a more hostile area near Baghdad to relieve US troops.
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said the redeployment requested by the United States would last "weeks rather than months". He said the move, which has provoked anger in Britain, was aimed at improving security for the nationwide polls due in January.
RAID ON FALLUJAH: In Fallujahh, seven people were killed on Friday as US planes launched another raid aimed at guerilla targets. And the army warned residents on loudspeakers to hand in wanted militants.
The US military has intensified operations around Fallujah in the past week in what it says is a drive against foreign fighters led by Jordanian Abu Musab al Zarqawi. It says Zarqawi, a declared Al Qaeda ally, has bases in the guerilla stronghold west of Baghdad. Fallujah residents deny all knowledge of Zarqawi's network. -Reuters
