CARE International suspended operations in Iraq Wednesday after gunmen seized the woman who ran the humanitarian organization's work in the country.
The victim's Iraqi husband appealed to the kidnappers to free her "in the name of humanity, Islam and brotherhood."

Margaret Hassan, who holds British, Irish and Iraqi citizenship, was seized early Tuesday on her way to work in western Baghdad after gunmen blocked her route and dragged the driver and a companion from the car, her husband said.

Hassan, who is in her early 60s, is among the most widely known humanitarian officials in the Middle East and is also the most high-profile figure to fall victim to a wave of kidnappings sweeping Iraq in recent months.

The Arab television station Al-Jazeera broadcast a brief video showing Hassan, wearing a white blouse and appearing tense, sitting in a room with bare white walls. An editor at the station, based in Qatar, said the tape contained no audio. It did not identify what group was holding her and contained no demand for her release.

Iraqi officials refused comment on the case, citing the need for security to protect her life.

"I would like to tell the kidnappers that we are in the holy month of Ramadan and my wife has been helping Iraq 30 years and loved this country," her husband Tahseen Ali Hassan said yesterday on Al-Arabiya television. "In the name of humanity, Islam and brotherhood, I appeal to the kidnapers to free her because she has nothing to do with politics."

The husband told Al-Jazeera that said his wife had not received threats and that the kidnappers had not contacted anyone with any demands as of Tuesday night.

Hassan has helped supply medicines and other humanitarian aid for three decades, and speaking out about Iraqis' suffering under international sanctions.

Meanwhile, US forces fired rockets in central Falluja early yesterday, hitting a teacher's college and leveling a house, killing six people, police and witnesses said.

A family of six was killed when US jets fired two rockets at their home in the central Wahda area at 4 AM, said neighbor Saeed Mohammed Bassem, 40. The couple and their four children had just returned to their home overnight after having fled the city a week earlier.

Ten minutes later, a US war plane lobbed a rocket that hit the Female Teachers' Preparation Institute in the Jumhuriya area but it did not detonate, said police officer Mohsen Adnan. The projectile fell through the school's ceiling, but only the launching capsule exploded.

In other developments, an army reservist indicted for abusing Iraqi prisoners, Staff Sergeant Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick, 38, was expected to plead guilty yesterday to four charges under a deal in which the prosecution drops eight other accusations against him.

Two Egyptian telecoms workers seized from their office in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood last month were freed by their captors yesterday, their employer said.

"They have been freed, thank God," said a spokesman for Iraqna, an Egyptian-owned mobile communications company which provides service in and around Baghdad.

(China Daily October 21, 2004)