BAGHDAD, Iraq – A kidnapped British aid worker made another plea for her life in a video aired Wednesday, urging Britain to withdraw troops from the country as about 800 British soldiers headed north toward Baghdad to bolster U.S. forces.
The tape broadcast on Al-Jazeera television showed a distraught Margaret Hassan, the 59-year-old head of CARE International in Iraq, blinking back tears as she spoke.
“Please don’t bring the soldiers to Baghdad. Take them away. Please, on top of that, please release the women prisoners,” she said.
No group has claimed responsibility for her abduction. But followers of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi made the same demand for the release of female prisoners in the abduction of two Americans and a Briton last month. All three were beheaded.
On Wednesday, Britain began redeploying about 800 troops toward the restive area south of Baghdad area in a move aimed at freeing up U.S. forces for an assault on insurgent areas north and west of the capital.
The soldiers of the Black Watch and the Queen’s Dragoon Guards are expected to assume security responsibility in areas close to the capital so U.S. Marines and soldiers can be shifted to insurgent strongholds including Fallujah, where al-Zarqawi and his terror group are believed to operate.
Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision to agree to the U.S. request for redeployment is a politically sensitive one for the British leader, whose popularity has plummeted because of his support for the Iraq war.
Britain’s 8,500 troops are based around the southern city of Basra in a relatively peaceful area of Iraq. Sixty-eight British soldiers have been killed in Iraq, compared with more than 1,000 U.S. troops.
On Wednesday, a motorcycle bomber attacked a U.S. convoy in central Iraq, killing one American soldier and wounding another.
U.S. forces have been increasing raids in Sunni insurgent areas to the north, south and west of the capital in recent months in a bid to stabilize Iraq ahead of national elections in January. The U.S. military said Wednesday that Iraqi forces, backed by Marines, captured 18 insurgents in a sweep through the central Iraqi town of Haswah.
A similar hostage drama was playing out in Japan, where Prime Minister Koizumi, a staunch U.S. ally, took a tough stand against militants who threatened to behead a Japanese hostage, refusing to pull out his country’s 500 troops from Iraq.
“The Self-Defense Forces will not withdraw,” Koizumi said Wednesday. “I cannot allow terrorism and cannot bow to terrorism.”
The victim, 24-year-old Shosei Koda, appeared in a video posted on the Internet in which al-Zarqawi’s terror group vowed to kill him within 48 hours unless the demand was met.
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