UK hostage captors threaten to hand her to Zarqawi

An unknown militant group holding an Iraqi-British woman hostage in Iraq threatened to turn her over to a group led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi if Britain did not quit Iraq, Al Jazeera said yesterday.

Zarqawi's group, Al Qaeda Organisation of Holy War in Iraq, is blamed for the bloodiest suicide attacks and hostage beheadings in Iraq.

Al Jazeera said it received a video tape from the group saying it would hand over Margaret Hassan to Zarqawi's group within 48 hours "if Britain does not meet its demands, mainly for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq".

The Arab satellite channel aired a video with a masked man holding an automatic rifle and speaking, but there was no audio. It was the first time a militant from the group, which has not identified itself, appeared in a video.

Al Jazeera said it would not air the full tape which also showed Ms Hassan making a plea.

"Al Jazeera will not air the video tape in full due to editorial and humanitarian reasons because of the state in which the hostage appears," the channel said, but did not elaborate.

Earlier, Al Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout said: "We do have a video tape of Margaret Hassan making a new appeal. We will not be broadcasting the tape because it has content which might be disturbing to some of our viewers."

Yesterday, Hassan's Irish relatives said they had pleaded with Britain to meet the demands of her captors.

"We are the Irish family of Margaret Hassan, and we are pleading with you to set her free," said Deirdre Fitzsimons, one of three sisters of the kidnapped woman who met Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern in Dublin yesterday.