Four Western hostages branded as spies were shown in a video aired last night as a spate of abductions took Iraq back to the dire security conditions foreigners faced from kidnappers last year.
The four aid workers - two Canadians, a Briton and an American - were shown in the tape broadcast by Al Jazeera television three days after they were snatched in west Baghdad.
The grainy video from a previously unknown group calling itself the "Swords of Truth" showed four men sitting cross-legged on the ground. It appeared to carry Sunday's date stamp and had crossed swords in the top right-hand corner.
The organization accused the men of being "spies working for the occupying forces" under the guise of working for a Christian group. Al Jazeera did not say if the tape included a threat against the men's lives.
The four work for Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), one of the few remaining aid groups operating in Iraq.
The video showed the passport of 74-year-old Briton Norman Kember, a retired professor and life-long peace activist who has been identified by the British Foreign Office.
CPT identified the other three hostages as American Tom Fox (54), a father-of-two from Clearbrook, Virginia, James Loney (41), a community worker from Toronto, and Harmeet Singh Sooden (32), a Canadian electrical engineer and squash coach.
"We pray that those who hold them will be merciful and that they will be released soon," CPT said in a statement.
"We are angry because what has happened to our team mates is the result of the actions of the U.S. and UK governments due to the illegal attack on Iraq and the continuing occupation and oppression of its people," it said.
The tape of the hostages emerged on the same day another group issued video showing it was holding a German archaeologist and her driver hostage. They disappeared in Baghdad on Friday.