IRAQ: An Iraqi opposition group issued a tape yesterday of an Australian taken hostage in Iraq, the latest victim of a kidnapping crisis that has seen more than 150 foreigners and several hundred Iraqis taken captive.
The tape came on the day US and Iraqi forces detained several men thought to be linked to the killing of aid worker Margaret Hassan, who was seized last year.
On the video a man identifying himself as Douglas Wood, a 63-year-old Australian who lives in California, appealed to the US, Britain and Australia to pull their troops out of Iraq and spare his life.
"Please help me. I don't want to die," he says, sitting on the floor as two masked men armed with assault rifles and wearing bullet proof vests stand on either side of him. The authenticity of the tape, which carries the banner of a previously identified group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahideen in Iraq, could not be verified.
Mr Wood said he had worked in Iraq for more than a year and "has done many jobs with the American military".
A statement from the kidnappers issued with the tape said it had been released to coincide with a visit to Iraq by Australian defence minister Robert Hill, who was in Baghdad yesterday.
"My captors are fiercely patriotic. They believe in a strong, united Iraq looking after its own destiny," Mr Wood said, his head slumped forward and his voice close to breaking.
"President Bush, Prime Minister Howard, (California) Governor Schwarzenegger, family, friends, please take the American troops, the Australian troops, the British troops out of here and let Iraq look after itself," he said, breaking down.
Mr Wood is the latest of 150 foreigners to have been seized in Iraq over the past 18 months. Almost a third of those have been killed after the captors' demands were not met.
During the same period, an estimated 5,000 Iraqis have been kidnapped by criminal gangs looking to earn ransom.
The arrest of those linked to the abduction and killing of Margaret Hassan came amid a surge in guerrilla activity in the past three days - since Iraq formed its first democratically-elected government in 50 years.
The political squabbling and renewed violence also appear to have fuelled sectarian tensions, with politicians struggling to balance the interests of Shias and Kurds, who are the new powers, and the Sunnis who dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein's reign.
Al-Arabiya satellite television reported yesterday that a suicide bomber had attacked the headquarters of a Kurdish party near Mosul, northern Iraq, killing 25 people.
At least nine people were killed in car bombings and shootings in Baghdad yesterday. Five policemen were shot dead at a checkpoint and a car bomb killed four others. A US Humvee was destroyed in another bomb blast, but it was not immediately clear if any US troops were wounded.
A suicide car bomber targeting a US base in eastern Baghdad failed to detonate his device properly. The driver was detained and confessed he had been forced to carry out the bombing by militants who were holding his family hostage, the US military said.
The attacks reinforced concerns that Iraqi forces have a long way to go before they can take over from American soldiers.
In the days since Iraq announced the formation of a government - after three months of negotiations - insurgents have carried out a furious sequence of attacks, including more than 15 car bombings in Baghdad that have killed dozens.
Iraqi officials say militants have capitalised on the months of political haggling over the government's formation to step up attacks in a campaign that has erased much of the optimism created by the January elections.
