Iraqi insurgents deny Hassan kidnapping

IRAQI insurgents yesterday denied involvement in the kidnapping of Margaret Hassan, the Dublin-born charity worker seized six days ago.

Commanders of five separate groups operating in Fallujah said they were not holding Ms Hassan and one suggested she was snatched by a criminal gang.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said there is still no information on the identity of those who kidnapped Ms Hassan, who has lived for three decades in Iraq and was the country director for the charity Care International.

Insurgents have condemned the kidnapping. “This woman works for a humanitarian organisation. She should not have been kidnapped,” the commander of one group said.

Those interviewed over the weekend also said there was no evidence that Ms Hassan, who holds Irish, Iraqi and British citizenship, was taken by foreign militants loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has declared his organisation to be allies of al-Qaida.

Al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid wal Jihad (One God and Holy War) group claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and beheading of two Americans and a Briton seized in Baghdad last month.

Ms Hassan was seized on Tuesday and appeared on a video on al-Jazeera television on Friday making a tearful plea for her life.

Al-Jazeera broadcast a statement from Taoiseach Bertie Ahern on Friday, in which he expressed shock at her kidnapping and called for her immediate release.

But the Government’s response to the earlier kidnapping of Kenneth Bigley, who was issued an Irish passport just before he was beheaded in Iraq, has been criticised by a leading international security specialist.

John Henry, director of the Dublin firm Specialist Security Services, said the awarding of a passport to Mr Bigley was a mistake. He also described comments made by Mr Ahern at the time as “poorly considered, ill-worded and insulting” to Iraqi insurgents.

Criminals, bolstered by the publicity surrounding the Bigley case, may be behind the kidnapping of Ms Hassan.

One guerrilla commander in Fallujah told reporters he believed Ms Hassan may have been the victim of a criminal kidnapping. “She had been living in Iraq for 30 years and she was a humanitarian. The resistance did not kidnap her because this would have left a bad impression of the resistance in the world,” he said.

Also yesterday, the Government played down the idea of Irish troops being sent to Iraq on duty with the United Nations.

Defence Minister Willie O’Dea admitted that he had discussed possible destinations for new rapid reaction battle-groups with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, including Iraq.

“Naturally we discussed what the battle-groups would entail, where they would be involved, places possibly such as Iraq at some time in the future when Iraq became much more stabilised than it is now at the moment.

“Of course the reality is that Ireland hasn’t yet signed up to the battle-group concept and even if we did sign up, each operation would be decided by the Irish Government on a case-to-case basis,” he said.