LIBYA: The Libyan leader, Col Muammar Gadafy, has appealed to kidnappers in Iraq to free British hostage Mr Kenneth Bigley, who has been given Irish citizenship by the Government.
One of Col Gadafy's sons, who has interceded in the past for Westerners held by Islamist groups, said on Tuesday he was using his charity foundation contacts in Iraq to help free Mr Bigley, saying the next 48 hours would be crucial for his fate.
Yesterday, the official Libyan news agency, Jana, said Col Gadafy wanted to hear from Mr Bigley's captors if they had any conditions for his release. "The brother leader issued an appeal to the kidnappers saying: 'We request the release of this poor Briton since his family had requested our help ... and if they have any conditions, convey them to us in any way possible'," said Jana.
Col Gadafy's son, Saif, said Mr Bigley's family had contacted him about the 62-year-old engineer, kidnapped nearly three weeks ago by militants who have beheaded his two US colleagues.
"We repeat the call to those who had kidnapped this Briton to contact us through any party, provided that they don't contact us through a party whose identity is not known and that it not be accused of terrorism," Jana quoted Col Gadafy as saying during a visit to the Libyan city of Musrata.
In Iraq meanwhile, a suicide car bomber killed 16 people and wounded 24 at a National Guard centre in the western part of the country as elsewhere US and Iraqi forces struggled to quell insurgents bent on derailing elections due in January.
An Interior Ministry official said the bomber targeted recruits for the paramilitary force in the town of Anah, 260 km north-west of Baghdad, near the Syrian border. Witnesses said they saw a car hurtling towards the National Guard centre on the edge of town just before the explosion.
The British Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, told a news conference in Baghdad he was impressed by the interim government's election preparations and confident the polls would go ahead.
Parts of Iraq have serious security problems, he said: "But there is another story going on of the new Iraq seeking to break out of the oppression and tyranny of Saddam and also from the oppression and tyranny of the terrorists."