British woman hostage in Iraq believed dead

The kidnappers of British aid worker Margaret Hassan have released a video tape that appears to show her murder a month after she was seized in Baghdad, her husband and British officials said yesterday.

"We can confirm there is a tape that appears to show Margaret's murder," a British embassy official in Baghdad siad. "We believe it is probably genuine."

If confirmed, the murder of Ms Hassan would be the first killing of a foreign woman taken hostage by militants in Iraq.

Arabic television channel Al Jazeera said it had received a tape that appeared to show Ms Hassan being shot.

Ms Hassan's husband Tahsin appealed for her kidnappers to hand over her body if she had been killed.

"I want to know if she is alive or dead. If she's dead I want to know where she is so I can bury her in peace," he said. "Margaret lived with me for more than 30 years in Iraq and dedicated her life to serving the Iraqi people."

Ms Hassan's captors had demanded that British troops leave Iraq. Last month the militant group led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi beheaded British hostage Kenneth Bigley after their demands that all Iraqi women be released from jail were not met. The group also killed two Americans seized with Mr Bigley.

More than 120 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq since April and more than three dozen have been killed.

The kidnapping crisis has added to the problems facing the interim Iraqi government and the US-led military force in Iraq as they try to crush insurgents and rebuild the country.

US and Iraqi forces launched an offensive in Mosul yesterday to retake control of rebel-held areas after a week of anarchy in Iraq's third largest city.

"Offensive operations have begun on the western side of the river to clear out final pockets of insurgent fighting," said Captain Angela Bowman, spokeswoman for US forces in the north.

"It's a significant operation to secure police stations in the area and make sure they can be put to use again."

While US forces have focused large numbers on an offensive in the city of Falluja for the past eight days, insurgents have struck in Mosul and elsewhere in Sunni Muslim areas north of Baghdad. The US military says it has taken control of Falluja, west of the capital, but scattered resistance remains.

Yesterday morning a Marine was killed in a suicide car bomb attack in the south of Falluja, a Marine officer said. At least 39 US troops have been killed since the start of the Falluja offensive eight days ago.

Near Balad, north of Baghdad, a guerilla attack on a convoy killed one US soldier and wounded another, the military said.

US and Iraqi forces met little resistance in the early stages of the Mosul operation but said a 4 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew would remain in place and that the five bridges over the Tigris in the city were closed, Mr Bowman said.

Last week scores of guerillas seized control of parts of the city, attacking police stations, looting them of weapons and flak jackets and setting them ablaze. Nine of 33 police stations were overrun, and some were briefly held by insurgents.

A few hundred US troops, backed by Iraqi national guards and a unit of Iraqi police special commandos were involved in yesterday's operation, which would continue until all police stations were secure and insurgents defeated, Mr Bowman said.

Iraq's government has insisted that civilian casualties in Falluja have been minimal, and says reports from aid agencies of a humanitarian crisis in the city have been exaggerated.

But controversy over the Falluja offensive has been fuelled by video footage showing a US Marine shooting dead a wounded and unarmed Iraqi in a mosque in the city on Saturday.

The US military said it was investigating the killing.

The Iraqi was one of five wounded left in the mosque after Marines fought their way through the area on Friday and Saturday. A pool report by NBC correspondent Kevin Sites said the mosque had been used by insurgents to attack US forces, who stormed it, killing 10 militants and wounding the five.

A second group of Marines entered the mosque on Saturday after reports insurgents had moved back into it. Footage from the television crew showed the five still in the mosque.