Australia deploys hostage response team

CANBERRA - A Department of Foreign Affairs emergency response team was preparing to head for Iraq to do what it could to secure the release of hostage Douglas Wood, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today.

But Mr Downer said that would not involve giving in to demands from insurgents that Australian forces be withdrawn from Iraq.

He said the government was taking the matter very seriously and the kidnapping appeared to be authentic.

"An inter-departmental task force has met and will be be deploying an emergency response team," Mr Downer told ABC radio.

"That will be led by a deputy secretary from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and will include people from my department but also the Australian Federal Police and some defence personnel.

"That will be getting going as quickly as is humanly possibly to go to Iraq to reinforce the efforts that our embassy is making on the ground there.'

Mr Downer said the team had been activated in September last year in response to a claim that another Australian had been kidnapped. That turned out to be untrue.

He said Mr Wood's kidnapping appeared to be authentic, although it was not known where and when he had been taken or how long he had been held.

Mr Downer said the department had been in touch with his family and employer.

Mr Wood was an American resident, but still an Australian citizen and the Australian government would do all it could to help, he said.

"Let's make it clear that of course we are not going to withdraw our troops as a result of a the statements that have apparently been made by Douglas Wood in response to demands made of him by insurgents," he said.

"We will obviously nevertheless endeavour to get him out without changing our policy. We won't be changing our policy. We won't be withdrawing our troops."

"We can't have our policy determined by a bunch of terrorists taking people hostage."

Past hostage crises in Iraq, particularly those involving Americans, have often ended in tragedy with insurgents murdering captives on camera.

Mr Downer indicated all was not lost.

"We are sending very experienced people in and we are obviously working very closely with our allies, with the Americans and the British in Baghdad as well as with the Iraqi Transitional government," he said.

"Some hostages have been released. Some have managed to get out. Some haven't. We will just have see how the experts get on there in Baghdad."

Mr Downer said not a lot of emphasis should be placed on the claimed name of the kidnappers.

They claim to be the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq. The group has previously claimed responsibility for attacks on US soldiers and Iraqi forces, plus the kidnapping of Turkish national Aytullah Gezmen, who was freed in September.

Mr Downer said his message to the group would be that it was inhumane to take hostages in this manner in a bid to compel Australia, the United States and Britain to change policy.

"None of our governments are clearly going to change our policies as a result of somebody being taken hostage," he said.

"It would be a disaster if we did. Otherwise, more people would constantly be taken hostage to determine foreign policy."

- AAP