Australian PM unmoved at hostage plea

63-year-old Australian hostage Douglas Wood. Picture / Reuters

CANBERRA - Australian negotiators were flying to Iraq yesterday as Prime Minister John Howard rejected any prospect of winding back the nation's military involvement in response to the kidnapping of an Australian hostage.

Douglas Wood, a 63-year-old American-based engineer who had been working in Iraq for a United States company for the past year, was kidnapped by a terrorist group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahidden of Iraq.

The group has not previously surfaced in Iraq, although a similarly named organisation, the Shura Council of the Mujahideen of Fallujah, has claimed responsibility for kidnappings and attacks on US troops.

In a statement issued with a videotape of Wood appealing for his life, the group said the kidnapping had been timed for a visit by the Australian Defence Minister, Senator Robert Hill, to Iraq at the weekend.

Hill visited Australian troops, whose numbers are being bolstered by armour and 450 soldiers sent to defend Japanese engineers in southern Iraq, and met new Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and Vice-President Ghazi al-Yawar.

As Hill continued his visit, the kidnappers released the tape of Wood sitting cross-legged, flanked by masked men armed with assault rifles, and almost breaking down as he begged for his life.

"My name is Douglas Wood," he said. "I'm a 63-year-old. I'm an Australian, a US resident. My wife is an American. We have a house in Alamo, California.

"I came to Iraq almost a year ago, working with [US contractor] John Watkinson and we had many jobs with the American military.

"My captives are fiercely patriotic. They believe in a strong, united Iraq, looking after its own destiny.

"President Bush, Prime Minister Howard, [Californian] Governor [Arnold] Schwarzenegger, family, friends, please help take the American troops, Australian troops, the British troops out of here and let Iraq look after itself. They are strong, they will be able to look after themselves against their neighbours. Please help me. I don't want to die."

Wood's wife, Pearl, has confirmed that the man in the video is her husband, and the Australian Foreign Affairs Department has issued a statement from his brother, Canberra resident Malcolm Wood, on behalf of the family.

The statement said the family was distressed and extremely concerned about Wood's plight, but expressed confidence in the Government.

"We trust that our Government and its officials, liaising with other Governments and agencies as appropriate, will do all that is reasonably in their power to confirm his situation and develop a response," it said.

But although Howard has expressed deep concern for Wood, he and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer have made it clear Australia will not withdraw its troops.

"I can understand the anguish people are going through and I feel for them very deeply, because this really is the tough end of any kind of difficult and controversial decision," Howard told ABC radio.

"I feel total responsibility for any harm that comes to anybody as a result of the decisions the Government has taken [but] it doesn't mean I step back from those decisions."

Downer said a hostage team drawn from the Australian Federal Police, defence and foreign affairs was being sent to reinforce the efforts being made by Australia's Embassy in Baghdad to secure Wood's release.

But he said Australia would not allow its policy to be dictated by a bunch of terrorists.

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

"We will obviously nevertheless endeavour to get him out without changing our policy."

Clive Williams, director of terrorism studies at the Australian National University, told AAP that Wood's kidnappers were probably an Islamist group.

"Their agenda is simply to publicise their cause then execute the hostage in the way that gets them the best coverage, which is usually beheading on video."