Charity suspends Iraq operations after director abducted

Care International suspended operations in Iraq today after gunmen seized the Irish-born woman who ran the humanitarian organisation’s work in the country.

Margaret Hassan’s Iraqi husband said the kidnappers had not contacted the family or her employer.

Hassan, who holds Irish, British and Iraqi citizenship, was seized early yesterday on her way to work in western Baghdad after gunmen blocked her route and dragged the driver and a companion from the car, her husband said.

Hassan, who is in her early 60s, is among the most widely-known humanitarian officials in the Middle East and is also the most high-profile figure to fall victim to a wave of kidnappings sweeping Iraq in recent months.

The Arab television station Al-Jazeera broadcast a brief video showing Hassan, wearing a white blouse and appearing tense, sitting in a room with bare white walls.

An editor at the station, based in Qatar, said the tape contained no audio. It did not identify what group was holding her and contained no demand for her release.

Iraqi officials refused to comment on the case, citing the need for security to protect her life.

Her husband, Tahseen Ali Hassan, told Al-Jazeera that said his wife had not received threats and that the kidnappers had not contacted anyone with any demands.

“Nothing like this happened before, because Care is a humanitarian organisation, and she has served the Iraqi people for 30 years,” he said.

Hassan has lived in Baghdad for 30 years, helping supply medicines and other humanitarian aid and speaking out about Iraqis’ suffering under international sanctions during the 1990s.

Early today, Care Australia, which co-ordinates the international agency’s Iraq operations, announced it had suspended operations because of the abduction, but it said staff would not be evacuated. It was unclear how many non-Iraqis work for Care in the country.

Many non-governmental organisations began withdrawing international staffers after attacks on foreigners and their institutions began in earnest in the summer of 2003.

“Our staff are not operating currently there. They’re certainly not working there now in light of the current situation,” Robert Glasser, Care Australia’s chief executive officer, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.

The kidnappings have added new pressure on US and Iraqi forces already struggling to combat a virulent Sunni Muslim uprising in central and northern areas of the country. US officials are trying to train and equip Iraqis to assume a greater security role.

However, the American general in charge of protecting Baghdad told reporters yesterday that the city was still far short of the numbers of Iraqi policemen needed to secure the city and the force would not be up to strength in time for national elections in January.

Major General Peter Chiarelli, commander of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division, said Baghdad needed 25,000 police. Now the city counts 15,000 police – most of whom have had just eight weeks of training.

“We’re about 10,000 short of what we need,” Chiarelli said. He said Baghdad’s required contingent of 25,000 police should be on the streets by spring or summer 2005.

Militants have kidnapped at least seven other women over the past six months, but all were later released. Last month, Italian aid workers Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, both 29, were kidnapped from their Baghdad offices. They were released after three weeks in captivity.

By contrast, at least 30 male hostages have been killed. Hassan’s abduction occurred less than two weeks after a video posted on an Islamic website showed the beheading of British hostage Kenneth Bigley.

Care said Hassan was born in Britain, but the Department of Foreign Affairs and Britain's foreign office said she was born in Ireland. When the kidnappers sent the tape to Al-Jazeera, they said they had abducted a “British aid worker”, according to the station.