Another Brit/Irish Kidnapped in Iraq.

mike65

http://www.islamic-relief.com/submenu/About%20Us/visits/iraq.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3756192.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3756552.stm

So is this a case of terrorists too stupid to notice she poses no threat to them or is anyone now fair game if a ransom can be generated from a government(s)...

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=178921

Mike.

therecklessone

I await the flood of posters saying she's got what she deserved, she shouldn't be over there, blah blah blah...

[size=-2]I am aware she has been in the country for 30 years, is married to an Iraqi man, and is an Iraqi citizen[/size]

SkepticOne

Most of those kidnapped in Iraq are Iraqis.

Nick_oliveri

I really dont mean any disrespect, but would anyone have cared before Bigley?

I honestly dont think so.

gandalf

Nice to see Iraq is getting safer for the elections !!!

Hope they are only looking for money and not a pack of fanatics. If they are fanatics she is history unfortunately (or have they executed any women yet?).

LegacyUser

no women have been executed yet, probably is a ranson, so far 28 out of 130 odd have been killed, the rest freed in exchange for moolah

LegacyUser

Nick_oliveri wrote:

I really dont mean any disrespect, but would anyone have cared before Bigley?

I honestly dont think so.

I don't get it, does anyone care afterwards ?

SkepticOne

CARE halts its operations in Iraq [Aljazeera]

CARE International decided on Wednesday to cancel all its activities in Iraq after an armed group kidnapped, Margaret Hassan, the woman who ran the organization's operations in the country. Margaret’s Iraqi husband said her captors had not contacted the family or the organisation.

Understandable, I suppose, but bad news for the Iraqis the organisation was helping.

dahamsta

Sad. It's worrying that they apparently called out her name when they kidnapped her.

adam

aidan_walsh

dahamsta wrote:

Sad. It's worrying that they apparently called out her name when they kidnapped her.

adam

Just means they knew who they were looking for, not like its hard to find that information.

seamus

dahamsta wrote:

Sad. It's worrying that they apparently called out her name when they kidnapped her.

adam

Kind of adds more fuel to the conspiracy theorists' fire - that many kidnappings are propaganda jobs organised by the US and UK.

Memnoch

kidnappings of iraqi's have been rife in baghdad and other parts of iraq ever since the invasion due to a complete break down of law and order and the occupying forces disinterest in actually doing anything about. Kinda like how they were happy to stand by while hospitals etc were being looted.

Kidnapping for ransom is big business in iraq now and iraqi women are constantly being kidnapped off the streets, there have been several newspaper articles about it.

Off course when this happens to a "westerner" we all of a sudden start to care.

dahamsta

doodle_sketch wrote:

Just means they knew who they were looking for, not like its hard to find that information.

That's what I meant: It's worrying that it's not random, that they're specifically targeting people like Hassan.

adam

SkepticOne

Memnoch wrote:

Off course when this happens to a "westerner" we all of a sudden start to care.

It's annoying but hardly new. Whenever there is a disaster, either natural or man-made, the focus of the media here is always on the Brit or Irish involved. When looney fanatics blow up police stations in Iraq it is mainly the ordinary Iraqi citizens that suffer and not only as a direct result of the explosion. Only when the Iraqis have the ability to police themselves can order be restored. Of course there will always be people who say things like "the national police, lmao, traitor scum is the word you are looking for" but these people usually have no suggestions of their own.

Chucky

Is she British or is she Irish? Sky say British and our news networks say she is from here (Irish Rrepublic). i'm confused.

sliabh

gandalf wrote:

Hope they are only looking for money and not a pack of fanatics. If they are fanatics she is history unfortunately (or have they executed any women yet?).

That doesn't help. What is generally happening is that criminals do the kidnapping and then the person is handed over to the fanatics in exchange for a fee. Sort of outsourced terror.

What you have to hope for is that you are ransomed by your government/employer before the jihadis pay for you.

aidan_walsh

Chucky wrote:

Is she British or is she Irish? Sky say British and our news networks say she is from here (Irish Rrepublic). i'm confused.

AFAIK, born in Dublin, but a holder of both British and Iraqi passports as well.

mike65

Latest

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A weeping British-Iraqi hostage pleaded for her life in a video broadcast on Friday as British troops prepared to move nearer Baghdad ahead of an expected U.S.-led offensive against rebels before January elections.

"Please help me, please help me," Margaret Hassan, who works for aid agency Care International, said on the video shown on Arabic Al Jazeera television. "These might be my last hours."

She urged Britons to tell Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw British troops from Iraq.

"I don't want to die like Bigley," Irish-born Hassan said before collapsing in tears. She was referring to British hostage Kenneth Bigley, beheaded by his captors earlier this month.

Al Jazeera did not name the group holding Hassan, who has lived in Iraq for 30 years and has Iraqi as well as British citizenship. She was seized in Baghdad on Tuesday.

Hassan is the eighth foreign woman to have been kidnapped in Iraq since April. The others, including two Italian aid workers held for three weeks in September, have been released.

The video surfaced the day after Britain announced it would move 850 troops from their relatively safe base in south Iraq to a more hostile area near Baghdad to relieve U.S. troops.

Mike.

pork99

She's obviously a mercenary CIA agent using charity work as a cover for covert operations against the brave Iraqi resistance who's only aim is to establish a peaceful socialist-feminist workers republic and therefore deserves everything she gets.

(I'm just waiting for someone to post some crap like that )

BuffyBot

Off course when this happens to a "westerner" we all of a sudden start to care.

Well, that's probably a bit unfair. Most folks wouldn't know anything about the others as the western media tend to only report such things when a "westerner" is involved.

mike65

Todays Tribune reports a security expert (Irish) being critical of the government here by linking Hassan to Ireland. His view being that this country is not viewed as neutral any longer vis-a-vis Shannon. Going on the talk about how public statements made by Ahern/Blair may play well at home but damage a hostages chances in Iraq. Blair got hammered during Bigleys detention for saying nothing...

Mike.

Sand

Blair got hammered during Bigleys detention for saying nothing...

Yup - you cant please everyone all of the time. I heard he spoke out against the Hassan kidnapping only for her husband to pretty much tell him to shut up, because anything he says in relation to her only reinforce her link to Britain in the eyes of her captors.

On the other hand Mr Hassan has been happy to stress her Irish links, perhaps underming Kevin Myer's thesis on the concepts of Good and Bad Anglophone White People not really mattering beyond Ireland. But depending on how psychotic the group holding her are, they wont give two damns if shes Irish, British, Iraqi or Martian. If they want money, they still want money. If theyre Kleins barmy army, theyll still cut her throat. The only positive so far is that its not confirmed its the fanatics who have her.

Moriarty

mike65 wrote:

Todays Tribune reports a security expert (Irish) being critical of the government here by linking Hassan to Ireland. His view being that this country is not viewed as neutral any longer vis-a-vis Shannon.

And while that stance is understandable, it's not one I'd subscribe to. She's working in a humanitarian role there but was abducted. We should be as loud as possible trying to get her released, and if that increases our chances of being attacked from incredibly unlikely to just very unlikely then so be it.

If we only ever react in a way that is least-likely to bring Ireland to the attention of international terrorisim, they've already won here.

sovtek

For some strange reason I'm reminded of the stat that an average of 5-15 innocent civilians are killed by US soldiers everyday in Iraq (that was before the attacks on Najaf and Falluja).
Gitmo and Abu Ghraib spring to mind as well.
I suppose all us white Europeans look alike.
Silly arabs

the_syco

Sand wrote:

If they want money, they still want money. If theyre Kleins barmy army, theyll still cut her throat. The only positive so far is that its not confirmed its the fanatics who have her.

To me this says that they're just criminals, no-one (terrorist group) actually wants her (as the Iraqi's like her), so they're pretending to be fanatics, so the price goes up a bit.

sovtek wrote:

For some strange reason I'm reminded of the stat that an average of 5-15 innocent civilians are killed by US soldiers everyday in Iraq (that was before the attacks on Najaf and Falluja).

A civilian is someone without a weapon, and not in military dress. If your mate was killed, would you a)leave the gun there, so they can be seen as a terrorist, or b)take the gun, as you'll need it, and leave your friend to be classified as a "civilian"?

sovtek

the_syco wrote:

A civilian is someone without a weapon, and not in military dress. If your mate was killed, would you a)leave the gun there, so they can be seen as a terrorist, or b)take the gun, as you'll need it, and leave your friend to be classified as a "civilian"?

Seeing as how it's usually a family in a car going through a US checkpoint....what do ya think?
I guess if I was a terrorist then I wouldn't be in my own country fighting a foreign military that happen to be occupying it.

A Dub in Glasgo

the_syco wrote:

A civilian is someone without a weapon, and not in military dress. If your mate was killed, would you a)leave the gun there, so they can be seen as a terrorist, or b)take the gun, as you'll need it, and leave your friend to be classified as a "civilian"?

Does that apply to children and infants as well?

mike65

KABUL (Reuters) - An Islamist group that claims responsibility for kidnapping three foreigners in Afghanistan said on Friday it would execute the hostages unless authorities called off their massive manhunt for the kidnappers.

The abduction on Thursday of the three victims -- working for the U.N. to help run the country's first presidential election -- has sparked fears that anti-American militants in the country may be copying bloody tactics used by insurgents in Iraq.

Afghan and security sources said on Friday three people had been detained in connection with the kidnapping and a vehicle believed to have been used to snatch the trio has been found, but there was no word on the fate of the hostages.

The suspects, wearing military uniforms, were picked up north of Kabul in the same area where authorities seized a black four-wheel-drive pickup truck with defense ministry number plates that fit descriptions of the vehicle used in Thursday's kidnapping.

It was the first kidnapping of foreigners in Kabul and raised fears that militants fighting nearly 28,000 U.S. and NATO forces in the country were copying tactics used by insurgents in Iraq.

The three abducted foreigners -- a woman with dual Irish and British citizenship, a woman from Kosovo and a Filipino diplomat -- had been helping organize Afghanistan's first direct presidential election on Oct. 9.

The group that claimed responsibility for their abduction warned authorities on Friday to halt the manhunt or else the hostages would be killed.

"If the U.S. and Afghan forces find our Mujahideen (holy warriors) during operations, we will kill them," Akbar Agha, of the Jaish-e-Muslimeen (Army of Muslims), a breakaway Taliban faction, told Reuters.

Leaders of the group later told Reuters they demanded the release of all Taliban prisoners held in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and that other demands would follow on Saturday.

This is very bad news for Hassen, the only hope was that the kidnappers had monetary, not political motivation.

Mike.