Muslim websites debate Hassan kidnap

The kidnap of Irish-born aid worker Margaret Hassan has sparked debate on fundamentalist Islamic websites, with many contributors urging that her life be spared given her decades-long service to the Iraqi people.

The 59-year-old director of Care International’s Iraqi operations was seized on Tuesday in western Baghdad. On a videotape aired on Friday by Al-Jazeera television, a terrified Mrs Hassan made a tearful plea for her life, calling on Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw troops from Iraq.

Mrs Hassan, who is married to an Iraqi and also holds British and Iraqi citizenship, is the most prominent figure to fall victim to the wave of kidnappings sweeping Iraq. As a woman who has spent nearly half her life helping Iraqis, her abduction has stirred the passions even of even those who have little sympathy for other kidnap victims.

“Spare this hostage. She is a woman who dedicated her life to supporting Iraq and its people. Is it religious that she is rewarded with murder?” said one website contributor, writing under the pseudonym “Hadeeth al-Zaman”.

“Say the British government did this and that,” he added. “Is it right that we take our revenge on an innocent person who is not involved with what her government does?”

Another contributor, writing under the name Nour Mohammed, said she “pitied the poor woman when I saw her face (on television). I hope they release her in respect for the poor woman’s weakness”.

The kidnapping and killing of civilians has traditionally been rejected under the teachings of Islam. The Prophet Muhammad enjoined his followers to treat captives with respect.

But Islamic militants have argued that civilians working for the US military do not qualify as non-combatants since they are profiting from the US war effort.

Mrs Hassan, who spoke out against United Nations sanctions imposed on Iraq after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, is viewed by many Muslims as a much more sympathetic figure.

“It is very hard to justify her killing using any Islamic argument unless they come up with something like, ‘She is a spy or an agent for occupation’,” said Mohammed Salah, a Cairo-based expert on Islamic militancy.

“The fact that she is a woman, an aid worker, married to an Iraqi and that she has lived in the country for quite some time primarily contributed to stirring this debate.”

The same argument was echoed by fighters on the ground. Yesterday, the hardline clerics who run the main Sunni Muslim rebel stronghold of Fallujah called on Mrs Hassan’s kidnappers to release her unless they could prove she was collaborating with the occupation.

Abu Saad, a member of the clerical Shura Council, said it was “illegitimate” to kidnap her “because she has been dealing with the Iraqis for several years, because she has been serving this country and because her husband is Iraqi”.

Militants have kidnapped at least seven other foreign women over the past six months, and all were released. By contrast, at least 33 foreign male hostages have been killed, including three Americans beheaded by their captors.

Still, some participants on the Islamic online forums have questioned Mrs Hassan’s work in Iraq and the intentions of Care International, which has been working in Iraq since 1991.

One contributor who wrote under the name “Yanaam” condemned Mrs Hassan’s supporters and claimed that Care was interested in converting Muslims to Christianity, a claim which Care denies.

“Are you crying for one who is after making Muslims convert to Christianity?” he asked. “Do you think they were doing this out of love for the Muslims?”

Despite such comments, Salah, the Islamic militancy expert, said the online debate was “definitely in her interest”.

“These people (militants) follow the media closely, and especially the internet, and they care a lot about what is said about them by Arab youth, whose sympathy they are after,” he said.

But Magnus Ranstorp, another terrorism expert, said the debate provided the militants with “greater leverage” because it intensified the pressure on the British and American governments.

Ranstorp, director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrews University in Scotland, said he did not believe the kidnappers cared much about the debate.

However, he acknowledged that it could reduce the chances of her death.

“They want to have sympathisers,” said Ranstorp.