BAGHDAD, 28 October 2004 — British troops rolled north from Basra yesterday to take over a deadly area near Baghdad and free up US troops for a widely expected attack on Fallujah.
“The deployment has begun,” a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense told Reuters in London. “For operational reasons I can give no further details. But they will be back for Christmas.”
A British column with Warrior armored vehicles on flatbed trucks headed north. The Warriors were fitted with extra slat armor to deflect rocket-propelled grenades — a weapon of choice for Iraqi insurgents.
About 850 British troops, mainly from the Black Watch regiment, are due to deploy in a restive region just south of Baghdad, allowing US troops to reinforce units fighting insurgents in rebel-held Fallujah and elsewhere.
US forces would spearhead any assault on the Sunni Muslim city, which Iraq’s interim government has vowed to retake before nationwide elections planned for January.
The Iraqi government believes pacifying Fallujah would help contain relentless suicide car bombings and abductions.
Kidnappers have seized scores of foreigners since April in a campaign to try and force US-led troops and foreign workers to leave Iraq. More than 35 hostages have been killed.
As British troops began their deployment near Baghdad, kidnapped Briton Margaret Hassan was shown in a new video yesterday on Al Jazeera television.
The Doha-based Arab satellite station said Hassan “issued an appeal to Britons to urge British Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw his troops from Iraq and not redeploy them in Baghdad”.
Al Jazeera aired footage of the aid worker wearing a brown top with a wall as background. A faint voice was heard but Hassan was not heard making the demands.
“We will consider very carefully what response, if any, to make to this latest video,” a spokesman for the British Foreign Office said in London.
Hassan’s employer, aid agency Care International, suspended its work in Iraq after the hostage-taking.
The Paris-based aid group Action contre la Faim said it was withdrawing its staff from Iraq due to security concerns, adding that aid activities by US-led forces made it hard for charities to appear impartial.
“Like many other organizations, Action contre la Faim is now forced to leave a country in agony — mainly due to permanent insecurity,” the group said in a statement.
A suspected motorcycle bomb attack on a US convoy killed a soldier and wounded another north of Baghdad, the military said. That fatality raised the US combat death to 847 since the start of last year’s war to topple Saddam Hussein.
US officials said the Pentagon might increase US forces in Iraq for the election period by delaying the departure of some troops and speeding the arrival of others.
Hundreds of Fallujah families have already left the city for safety. Local leaders said they would travel to Baghdad to renew on-off peace talks with the government yesterday.
The government has vowed to unleash military action unless the people of Fallujah hand over foreign militants led by Al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, said to operate in the city.
Zarqawi’s feared Islamist group threatened on Tuesday to behead a Japanese hostage unless Tokyo pulls its 550 troops out of Iraq within 48 hours. Japan rejected the demand.
The Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq said in a video placed on the Internet that unless Japan complied “this infidel will meet the same fate as Berg ... and the other infidels” — a reference to American Nick Berg, who was beheaded in May, and five other hostages killed by Zarqawi’s recently renamed group.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who sent troops to Iraq despite public opposition, stood firm yesterday.
“We cannot tolerate terrorism and we will not give in to terrorism,” he said. “We will not withdraw the Self-Defense Force (SDF),” he added, referring to the Japanese military.
The video showed the hostage, identified as Shosei Koda, 24, with long hair and a thin beard, seated in front of three masked men and a black banner bearing the group’s name. “They want the Japanese government and Prime Minister Koizumi to withdraw Japanese troops from Iraq or they will cut my head (off),” Koda said in English.
As one militant read out a statement, another grabbed Koda by the hair and pulled his head up to face the camera.
In July, the Philippines withdrew its 50 troops to save a Filipino hostage under a similar death threat.
Interim Defense Minister Hazim Al-Shaalan said a security breach in the Iraqi National Guard may have led to a weekend massacre of 49 army recruits that Zarqawi’s group claimed.
