Iraqi governor seized

Insurgents kidnapped the top official in Iraq's rebellious Anbar province yesterday and the deadline set by the captors of an Australian hostage passed with no word on his fate.

Raja Nawaf, who only became governor of Anbar a few days ago, was abducted with four bodyguards on the road from the town of Qaim, near the Syrian border, to the rebel stronghold of Ramadi, his brother, Hamed Nawaf, said.

The kidnappers, supporters of the al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, are demanding that Mr Nawaf's tribe release some of the militant leader's followers it is holding, said Mr Nawaf's brother and a member of the Ramadi city council.

Although it appears to be a tit-for-tat turf war, the fighting showed some Iraqis are putting up resistance to Mr Zarqawi, whose followers have kidnapped and beheaded foreigners and launched suicide bomb attacks that have killed hundreds.

US forces said they too continued an offensive launched three days ago against rebels in an unspecified area of Anbar.

The abduction of the Anbar governor underscored the complex security challenge facing Iraq's new government as it tries to tame lawless regions where Mr Zarqawi's ruthless followers are taking on Iraqi security forces, American troops and tribes.

That hostage drama played out in Iraq's guerilla heartland as a deadline set by an insurgent group holding 63-year-old Australian engineer Douglas Wood expired.

In a video shown on Al Jazeera television last week, Mr Wood looked distraught as two masked insurgents pointed rifles at him. His head was shaved and he appeared to have a black eye.

The insurgent group, the Shura Council of the Mujahideen in Iraq, demanded Australia withdraw its troops from Iraq.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said there had been no word about Mr Wood's fate since the deadline passed.

Japan, another US ally in Iraq, was also grappling with a hostage crisis.

One of Iraq's most feared insurgent groups, the Army of Ansar al-Sunna, said in an internet statement it had ambushed a foreign security convoy near a US base in western Iraq and captured a Japanese citizen. A picture of the man's passport posted on the internet gave his name as Akihiko Saito, aged 44.

Both Australia and Japan have troops in Iraq supporting the US military. A new batch of 450 Australian soldiers is due to arrive soon in southern Iraq, taking the total of Australian troops in and around Iraq to about 1,400.

Japan has around 550 soldiers in Iraq, a largely symbolic deployment as they are not allowed to take part in combat.

Australia and Japan have repeatedly said they will not bow to demands of kidnappers. Besides Saito, six Japanese have been taken hostage in Iraq. Five were released but Shosei Koda, a backpacker, was beheaded by his captors last year.

In Baghdad, insurgents kept up the pressure on the new government with two more suicide car bomb attacks, killing eight people and wounding more than 20, police said.