Free my wife, pleads Hassan husband

The husband of charity chief Margaret Hassan, kidnapped at gunpoint in Baghdad yesterday, made an emotional plea for her release today.

“I would like to tell the kidnappers that we are in the holy month of Ramadan and my wife has been helping Iraq since 30 years and loved this country,” Tahseen Ali Hassan said on Al-Arabiya satellite television.

”In the name of humanity, Islam and brotherhood, I appeal to the kidnappers to free her because she has nothing to do with politics.”

He said his wife – who has Irish, British and Iraqi citizenship - had not received threats and the kidnappers had not contacted anyone with any demands.

Mrs Hassan, in her early 60s, heads Care International’s operations in Iraq and the humanitarian organisation suspended operations in country today

She 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.

Mrs Hassan 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 Mrs 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 comment on the case, citing the need for security to protect her life.

Mrs 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 Iraq.

Many non-governmental organisations began withdrawing international staff 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,” said Robert Glasser, Care Australia’s chief executive officer.

Kidnappings have added new pressure on US and Iraqi forces already struggling to combat a virulent Sunni Muslim insurgency 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 said the city is still far short of the numbers of Iraqi policemen needed to secure the city and the force will not be up to strength in time for national elections in January.

Major General Peter Chiarelli said Baghdad needs 25,000 police. Now the city counts 15,000 police – most of whom have had just eight weeks of training.

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 after it was alleged that a $1m (€795,100) ransom was paid.

By contrast, at least 30 male hostages have been killed.

Mrs Hassan’s abduction occurred less than two weeks after a video posted on an Islamic website showed the beheading of British hostage Ken Bigley.

Care said Mrs Hassan was born in Britain, but the Department of Foreign Affairs and the British 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.

Astrid van Genderen Stort, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said it was up to each non-governmental organisation whether to keep staff in Iraq.

“The kidnapping of the Italian and Iraqi women only a while ago should have alerted others even more as to the dangers of operating in Iraq,” she said.