Iraq group issues video of Western hostages

A video grab released today shows unidentified Western hostages held captive by a group calling itself Swords of Truth. Picture / Reuters

DUBAI - A hitherto unknown Iraqi group issued a video showing four Western hostages it called "spies of occupying forces", Al Jazeera television reported.

The video from the group "Swords of Truth" showed four men sitting on the ground. Dated November 27, it also showed a British passport in the name of Norman Kember.

The Briton, who the British Foreign Office said was a 74-year-old retired professor, was among four aid workers -- including two Canadians and an American -- snatched in Baghdad on Saturday. The others have not been named. Al Jazeera did not say if the tape included a threat against the men's lives. It said the group accused them of being "spies working for the occupying forces" while working for a Christian organisation.

They were from peace and humanitarian group Christian Peacemaker Teams, one of the few remaining aid groups operating in Iraq.

The organisation cancelled a scheduled news conference in Chicago on Tuesday for unspecified "security reasons", but a spokeswoman, Jessica Phillips, confirmed two of its full-time volunteers and two of its "delegates" had been kidnapped.

CPT has declined to name the other three men in the interest of their security.

Phillips said the group, which has 180 full- and part-time members mostly from US and Canada, has had a project in Iraq since 2001 with some members still there, working with local people to provide a "peaceful presence".

"In Iraq, we've been collecting stories of people who were abused in detention. Our members accompany family members looking for missing relatives to talk to American military forces and Iraqi government officials, again, to make our presence felt," Phillips said.

CPT emerged in the late 1980s from the Mennonites, the Quaker Friends Society and Church of Brethren. Members of other Christian churches have since joined and the group works in Haiti, Colombia and the West Bank.

More than 100 foreigners have been seized by insurgents in Iraq over the past two years. Some kidnappers demanded foreign forces quit Iraq, others sought ransoms and some both.

Some hostages were freed but dozens were executed by their kidnappers.

- REUTERS