Hostaged Aid Worker Brutalized

[David]

AP


The kidnappers of aid worker Margaret Hassan threatened to turn her over to an al Qaeda affiliated group within 48 hours if the British government refuses to pull its troops from Iraq, Al-Jazeera television reported Tuesday.

Al-Jazeera broadcast a video of a hooded gunman but did not air the sound. Instead, the newscaster said the kidnappers gave Britain 48 hours to meet their demands, "primarily the withdrawal" of British troops.

Otherwise, the 59-year-old Hassan will be handed over to the al Qaeda in Iraq group, headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The group has beheaded a number of other hostages, including three Americans and a Briton.

It was the first time a deadline has been set in the abduction of Hassan. The newscaster said the station declined to broadcast the entire tape because "of the hostage's condition."

Hassan, an Irish-British-Iraqi citizen who heads CARE International in Iraq, was abducted last month from her car in Baghdad. No group has claimed responsibility for her kidnapping and there was no sign on the brief broadcast of any banner identifying who held her.

Al-Jazeera decided not to air the video because it was "too graphic," spokesman Jihad Ballout said.

In other developments:


Saboteurs blew up an oil pipeline and an oil well in northern Iraq in two attacks Tuesday that shut down oil exports from the north, probably for the next 10 days, Iraqi oil officials said.


At least eight people, including a woman, died early Tuesday when an explosives-laden car slammed into concrete blast walls and protective barriers surrounding the Education Ministry and exploded in Baghdad's Sunni Muslim district of Azamiyah. Ten others were injured, including a 2-year-old girl, according to Al-Numan Hospital. Officials at Baghdad Medical City Hospital reported two more deaths and 19 injured.


In Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, a car bomb exploded near a military convoy carrying an Iraqi general, killing four civilians and wounding at least seven soldiers. Iraqi police said the attack was an assassination attempt on Maj. Gen. Rashid Feleih, commander of a special task force, who was not injured. Feleih was apparently on his way to a news conference to talk about the role of the task force, according to police and media reports.


The U.S. military reported overnight airstrikes Tuesday in Fallujah that destroyed a known enemy cache site on the southeast side of the city. Hospital officials in Fallujah said one person was killed and six others were wounded during clashes. It was unclear whether they were casualties of air or ground attacks.


A U.S. military convoy was hit by a motorcycle bomber Tuesday in Ramadi, though it was unclear whether there were any casualties, according to police. The U.S. military had no immediate comment. Heavy clashes between Iraqi insurgents and U.S. forces have continued for days in Ramadi, one of several Sunni Muslim cities used by rebels have used as a base. Ramadi is 70 miles west of Baghdad.


A suicide car bomber detonated a blast Monday night at a checkpoint manned by Iraqi National Guards and U.S. soldiers in the town of Haditha, about 75 miles west of Ramadi, according to a source with the National Guard. There was no information on any casualties. The U.S. military also had no immediate response to this incident.


Iraqi police arrested two operatives of Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and seized weapons and ammunition, a police commander said Tuesday. Provincial police commander Maj. Gen. Waleed al-Azzawi said the first suspect was arrested by coalition troops last week and handed over to Iraqi authorities. He confessed to working for al-Zarqawi's group and gave the name of the second suspect who was arrested in a raid Monday night about 60 miles north of Baqouba, al-Azzawi said.

In Dublin, Hassan' birthplace, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who read the text of the video but hadn't seen it, said he believes it shows the 59-year-old Hassan pleading for her life directly to the camera before suddenly fainting, according to Britain's Press Association news agency.

He said a bucket of water is then thrown over her head and she is filmed lying wet and helpless on the ground before getting up and crying, the agency said.

Ahern told the Irish parliament that the video was "distressing" and said "there were a number of very dangerous and very serious timescales stated."

Her captors previously released three videos of Hassan, and in two of them she pleads for her life, saying she fears she will be beheaded. But she does not say when, and none of her kidnappers have appeared in any of the tapes.