Militant video shows four foreigners seized in 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 74-year-old Briton Norman Kember, 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 and works with local people to provide a "peaceful presence" in the country.

"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 video of it holding a German archaeologist and her driver hostage. They disappeared in Baghdad on Friday.

Despite the upsurge in kidnappings of foreigners and Iraqis and political and sectarian violence ahead of December 15 parliamentary elections, there have been predictions that US soldiers may soon start to withdraw as overall security improves.

With the elections seen as a landmark along the road to stability, Iraq's national security adviser said up to 30,000 of the 155,000 US soldiers in Iraq could leave in early 2006.

Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said local security forces were performing better than before and a recent fall in guerilla attacks marked "the beginning of the end of the insurgency".

"We have tipped the balance now to our favour and the momentum is only going to get better," Mr Rubaie told Reuters in an interview when asked about American soldiers' withdrawals.

His remarks appeared to contradict assessments by US generals who say very few Iraqi units are ready to fight alone.

In another videotape broadcast yesterday, unidentified kidnappers threatened to kill German archaeologist Susanne Osthoff and her driver unless Berlin stopped cooperating with Iraq's US-backed government, Germany's ARD TV reported.