Iraq

Aid agency director abducted

The humanitarian group CARE International halts operations in Iraq after Margaret Hassan was pulled from her car.

BAGHDAD - The Irish-Iraqi director of CARE International in Iraq was kidnapped Tuesday as she drove to her office, the latest in a string of Westerners abducted here, and hours later appeared in a televised videotape made by her abductors.

Margaret Hassan, a longtime advocate for Iraq and its people who holds British, Irish and Iraqi citizenships and is married to an Iraqi, was pulled from her car by a group of men, who beat her driver and guard with their rifle butts, the New York Times reported, quoting an unnamed colleague of Hassan's.

The Associated Press, quoting an unnamed CARE employee, reported that the group does not employ armed guards.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language TV network, Hassan's husband, Tahseen Ali Hassan, said that his wife had not received threats and that the kidnappers had not contacted anyone with any demands.

"Nothing like this (has) happened before, because CARE is a humanitarian organization, and she has served the Iraqi people for 30 years," he said.

CARE International suspended its operations in Iraq after the kidnapping, the head of the aid agency's Australian arm said Wednesday.

Hours after the abduction, Al-Jazeera broadcast a video it had received showing Hassan seated in a room, looking distraught, as well as closeups of her identification cards. Unlike previous videos released to TV networks, no militants or banners were shown.

The station said that the video was accompanied by a claim of responsibility from an unnamed group and that it had not made any demands.

Although militants have kidnapped at least seven other women over the past six months, all were later released. By contrast, at least 30 male hostages have been killed, including three Americans beheaded by their captors. Hassan's abduction occurred less than two weeks after a video posted on an Islamic Web site showed the beheading of British hostage Kenneth Bigley.

Hassan, 52, was one of the few Western nationals still working for a relief agency in Iraq. All but a handful left the country after the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in August 2003, and nearly all the rest left last month after the abduction of two Italian relief workers.

Widely respected in Baghdad, Hassan speaks fluent Arabic. The BBC reported she was born in Dublin and is an Irish citizen by birth.

"She has been there three decades, over half her life, and considered herself to be more of an Iraqi national," said Kate Bulbulian, a spokesman for CARE International in London. "That is what her life is."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters at 10 Downing St. that he would do whatever he could to free her. But he said the government did not know who had abducted her.

Hassan began working for CARE after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but she has been involved in relief work for at least 25 years.

She heads CARE's 60-person operation in Iraq, which has been working to rebuild health centers and labs, provide medical supplies to hospitals and restore access to clean water, Bulbulian said.

In 2003, shortly before the war, Hassan warned members of the British Parliament that war would exact a huge toll on the country.

"The things that are most important about her is that she is such a huge advocate for Iraq and the Iraqi people and has been for years," said Donna Derr, associate director of emergency response at Church World Service, a humanitarian relief group. "She always spoke out with great energy about how sanctions had impacted Iraqi citizens and just was a huge advocate."

MORTAR ATTACK: At least four Iraqis were killed and 80 wounded in a mortar attack on an Iraqi National Guard base north of Baghdad. The soldiers had gathered for a head count when the first of seven mortar shells landed in the compound, witnesses said. Only three of the shells exploded.

Such attacks are aimed at punishing Iraqis who cooperate with the government and demoralizing the survivors. On the grounds of the base, in the town of Mashahidah, about 25 miles north of Baghdad, the prevailing sentiment was not apathy but anger. Such attitudes may explain why, in part, despite the unrelenting attacks by the insurgents, recruits still line up to join the national guard.

"I will not kneel before these terrorists," said Qusay Hassan, a national guard recruit. "If I don't join the army, who is going to defend the country from the terrorists?"

FALLUJAH TALKS: Fallujah negotiators are ready to resume talks with the Iraqi government to avert an all-out U.S. assault and allow Iraqi forces to take charge of security in the rebel-held city, a negotiator said Tuesday.

Ahmed Hardan said he was encouraged by a softening in government rhetoric and the release Monday of the chief city negotiator, Sheik Khaled al-Jumeili, despite near daily U.S. attacks on the city.

WEAPONS BUYBACK: The commanders of the Army unit in charge of Sadr City, the vast Shiite slum in Baghdad's northeast, reported progress in disarming the Shiite militia there, saying the weapons buyback program had collected more of certain types of weapons than American commanders thought the militia had.

"We've had a lot of heavy weapons turned in, and in some categories we've had more than I thought they had," said Col. Abe Abrams, the commander of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, which oversees Sadr City. He cited mortar tubes as an example.

The program was part of a larger agreement this month with Muqtada al-Sadr, the rebel Shiite cleric, to disarm his militia and coax him toward the democratic political arena.

NAME CHANGED: Monotheism and Holy War, the Iraqi militant group of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, apparently has changed its name two days after announcing its merger with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida.

An Internet statement released Tuesday under the purported new name, al-Qaida of Jihad in the Land of Two Rivers, claimed responsibility for an attack on a U.S. military convoy west of the Iraqi city of Fallujah the same day. The two rivers in the new name refers to the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

Information from the New York Times and Associated Press was used in this report.

World and national headlines

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright