Phoenix
It sounds like there are many different categories of "these people", each with a different agenda. Who knows what the motive was for kidnapping Margaret Hassan? But she is clearly in a different category to recemtly arrived western workers on contract there. And also, she clearly has strong Iraqi connections, given the distress her kidnapping has caused in Iraq. In terms of "hearts & minds" of Iraqis, her kidnapping would appear to have been a blunder if it was purely for political ends.
Last Update: Sunday, October 24, 2004. 9:25pm (AEST)
Fallujah insurgents deny holding aid worker
Insurgent commanders in the Iraqi city of Fallujah said today they were not holding foreign hostage Margaret Hassan and condemned her kidnapping.
"This woman works for a humanitarian organisation. She should not have been kidnapped," said the emir, or commander, of one group of Iraqi insurgents in the town.
Many of the scores of kidnappings in Iraq since April have taken place around Fallujah, a fiercely anti-American guerrilla stronghold 50km west of Baghdad.
The US military and Iraqi government officials say Fallujah is a base for foreign militants loyal to declared al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian whose group has claimed responsibility for kidnappings and suicide bombings.
Commanders of five separate guerrilla groups interviewed in Fallujah said they were not holding Ms Hassan and had seen no evidence that Zarqawi's organisation had kidnapped her.
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, who holds Irish, British and Iraqi citizenship, was seized on Tuesday.
She appeared on a video on Arabic Al Jazeera television on Friday making a tearful plea for her life.
Ms Hassan was sitting in a white room with no indication of which group was holding her.
Criminals sometimes take hostages in Iraq for ransom, or sell them to militant groups.
One guerrilla commander in Fallujah said 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," said the commander, who asked not to be named.
Ms Hassan was seized from her car on her way to work by gunmen said by her husband to have included one in police uniform.
She was the eighth foreign woman to have been kidnapped in Iraq in the last six months.
The others, including two Italian aid workers held for three weeks in September, have been freed.
A Fallujah guerrilla commander said he did not see a political motive for abducting Ms Hassan, who had worked in Iraq for the aid agency Care International since the early 1990s.
"If she was suspect, Saddam Hussein's intelligence agents would have found out a long time ago," he said.
--Reuters
Phoenix32890 wrote:msolga wrote:But, Phoenix, she is an Iraqi citizen. She has lived there for something like 30 years & is married to an Iraqi. She is, apparently, a highly respected member of her Iraqi community.
I think that you are trying to figure this whole thing out with logic and reason. Problem is, there is nothing logical or reasonable about fanaticism.
If we understand that these people will pull the most heinous acts to attempt to get their way, we will begin to understand what is happening there.
Oh - there is a logic and reason all right - once you accept their premises.
Like christian fundies who murder abortion doctors - or people wanting to nuke Afghanistan...or grunts in Abu Ghraib...
That Reuters piece is interesting...but there are now so MANY little groups....
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I see no demands posted. It makes me think she's being held for ransom.
British troops not to make the move asked for by Bush I believe...
Damn rabbits look weird one after the other like that!
dlowan wrote:British troops not to make the move asked for by Bush I believe...
Well? They make the move to Baghdad ; if you mean that.
dlowan wrote:British troops not to make the move asked for by Bush I believe...
if so, I hope that's going to be enough.
But the troops will be move.
littlek wrote:dlowan wrote:British troops not to make the move asked for by Bush I believe...
if so, I hope that's going to be enough.
I think Thok means they have alreqady made the move.
Yeah, and I tried to check into it online, but found little.
dlowan wrote:
I think Thok means they have alreqady made the move.
Not yet, but they will be move to Baghdad. The UK goverment has already agree to this request.
If some kind moderator reads this, could I please have this thread moved to International News, please? I accidentally placed it in the Oz forum.
msolga wrote:If some kind moderator reads this, could I please have this thread moved to International News, please? I accidentally placed it in the Oz forum.
I sent a request, hopefully they will not refused it.
I am always afraid to see the latest news on this thread.
littlek wrote:I am always afraid to see the latest news on this thread.
Things have become very quiet, littlek .... No news. I don't know whether this is good or bad. I'm hoping good ....
