Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
San Diego Union-Tribune
February 27, 2008 Hostage was seized in May along with four other men
By Paul Schemm, Associated Press
CAIRO, Egypt – An Arab TV news network broadcast a portion of a video yesterday showing a British hostage seized in Iraq last May. The station said the kidnappers were demanding that Britain free nine Iraqi prisoners.
The hostage, who has been identified as Peter Moore, was kidnapped by heavily armed men in police uniforms in May from the Iraqi Finance Ministry, together with four of his British security guards. They were driven away in a convoy of 19 four-wheel-drive vehicles toward the Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad.
Moore, who worked for BearingPoint, a U.S.-based management consulting firm, appeared in a black-and-white track suit with a beard and looked as though he was in good health.
Moore called on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to accede to the kidnappers' demand for a trade. “It's as simple as that,” he could be heard saying on the snippet of the tape broadcast on Al-Arabiya.
The network said on its Web site that it received the video from a group calling itself the “Islamic Shiite Resistance in Iraq” and offering the five Britons in exchange for nine of their men being held by British forces for the past year.
The British Foreign Office said, “We condemn the release of videos such as this, which are greatly distressing to the families of those involved.”
In December, another video of the hostages called on Britain to pull out all of its forces from Iraq within 10 days. It showed what was purported to be one of the captives sitting beneath a sign reading “the Islamic Shiite Resistance in Iraq.” The man was not identified.
That video carried a written statement saying the five had “acknowledged and confessed and detailed the agenda with which they came to steal our wealth under false pretense of being advisers to the Finance Ministry.”
At the time of the kidnapping, Iraqi officials blamed the Mahdi army, the militia under the control of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the attack was believed to be a retaliatory strike for the killing by British forces of the militia's commander in the southern city of Basra.
However, al-Sadr's followers have disavowed the kidnapping, and suspicion has fallen on splinter groups the United States believes are controlled by Iran. The four other captives were security workers for the Montreal-based firm GardaWorld.
Meanwhile, a British journalist working for CBS News who was kidnapped Feb. 10 was still in custody in Basra and remains in good health, said a top official in al-Sadr's network.
Harith al-Edhari, a director of al-Sadr's office in Basra, said his team was negotiating with the kidnappers and expressed confidence that the journalist will be released.
February 27, 2008 Hostage was seized in May along with four other men
By Paul Schemm, Associated Press
CAIRO, Egypt – An Arab TV news network broadcast a portion of a video yesterday showing a British hostage seized in Iraq last May. The station said the kidnappers were demanding that Britain free nine Iraqi prisoners.
The hostage, who has been identified as Peter Moore, was kidnapped by heavily armed men in police uniforms in May from the Iraqi Finance Ministry, together with four of his British security guards. They were driven away in a convoy of 19 four-wheel-drive vehicles toward the Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad.
Moore, who worked for BearingPoint, a U.S.-based management consulting firm, appeared in a black-and-white track suit with a beard and looked as though he was in good health.
Moore called on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to accede to the kidnappers' demand for a trade. “It's as simple as that,” he could be heard saying on the snippet of the tape broadcast on Al-Arabiya.
The network said on its Web site that it received the video from a group calling itself the “Islamic Shiite Resistance in Iraq” and offering the five Britons in exchange for nine of their men being held by British forces for the past year.
The British Foreign Office said, “We condemn the release of videos such as this, which are greatly distressing to the families of those involved.”
In December, another video of the hostages called on Britain to pull out all of its forces from Iraq within 10 days. It showed what was purported to be one of the captives sitting beneath a sign reading “the Islamic Shiite Resistance in Iraq.” The man was not identified.
That video carried a written statement saying the five had “acknowledged and confessed and detailed the agenda with which they came to steal our wealth under false pretense of being advisers to the Finance Ministry.”
At the time of the kidnapping, Iraqi officials blamed the Mahdi army, the militia under the control of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the attack was believed to be a retaliatory strike for the killing by British forces of the militia's commander in the southern city of Basra.
However, al-Sadr's followers have disavowed the kidnapping, and suspicion has fallen on splinter groups the United States believes are controlled by Iran. The four other captives were security workers for the Montreal-based firm GardaWorld.
Meanwhile, a British journalist working for CBS News who was kidnapped Feb. 10 was still in custody in Basra and remains in good health, said a top official in al-Sadr's network.
Harith al-Edhari, a director of al-Sadr's office in Basra, said his team was negotiating with the kidnappers and expressed confidence that the journalist will be released.