LIVERPOOL, Sept 25: Two envoys from Britain's leading Muslim organization travelled to Iraq Saturday, hoping to help secure the release of a British engineer taken hostage eight days ago.

The respected Muslim Council of Britain joined a growing campaign to rescue Kenneth Bigley, 62, originally from Liverpool, after 50,000 leaflets were distributed in Baghdad asking ordinary Iraqis to help locate him.

"We appeal to the group that is holding Ken Bigley to release him without delay and without harm," said the council's secretary general Iqbal Sacranie as envoys Daud Abdullah and Musharraf Hussain prepared to depart.

"He is an elderly man and he is due to become a grandfather soon," he said in a statement. "Be merciful. Our religion Islam does not allow us to harm the innocent."

Mr Bigley was snatched on Sept 16 - along with two American colleagues who have since been executed - by Tawhid wal Jihad, a group led by Jordanian-born radical Abu Mussab Zarqawi.

Over the past few days, Mr Bigley's family - including his son, his brothers, his Thai wife in Bangkok and his 86-year-old mother in Liverpool - have issued a series of emotional appeals to his captors for his safe release.-AFP