IRAQ: Four western hostages labelled "spies of the occupation" were shown in a video aired yesterday as a spate of abductions took Iraq back to the dire security conditions foreigners faced from hostage-takers 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" brigades 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 organisation 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 men work for Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), one of the few remaining aid groups operating in Iraq.
The video showed the passport of Briton Norman Kember (74), a retired professor and life-long peace activist who has been identified by the British Foreign Office.
CPT has been operating in Iraq since 2002.
"The names of the other hostages are being withheld in the interest of their security," the group said in a statement.
The tape of the hostages emerged on the same day that another group issued a video of it holding a German archaeologist and her driver hostage. They disappeared in Baghdad on Friday.
Police said two prominent Iraqis had also been kidnapped.
Saad Albana, a senior housing ministry official, was abducted from his Baghdad home on Monday. Gunmen also abducted Thafer Migwil Hazza, a relative of Saddam Hussein and a former Iraqi army officer, from his house in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit. - (Reuters)