A French engineer is latest of 6 to be abducted
BAGHDAD -- Masked gunmen abducted a French engineer from the streets of Baghdad yesterday, in the latest kidnapping of Westerners that coincides with Saddam Hussein's trial and the campaign for parliamentary elections.
The new hostage was identified as Bernard Planche. In the past 10 days, two Canadians, an American, a Briton and a German have also been seized.
In London, the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, encouraged the kidnappers of the Briton to make contact. ''We stand ready to hear what they have to say," Straw said. The British Broadcasting Corp. cited a Western diplomat in Baghdad as having said that direct contact had been made with the hostage-takers.
The radio and television network did not name the diplomat.
Straw, however, underlined the British government's refusal to negotiate with kidnappers or to pay ransom.
There is no evidence that the kidnappings were coordinated, and those responsible for abducting the German aid worker and four Christian peace activists said they represented different groups. But the abductions seem to be timed to Hussein's trial, or to the elections set for Dec. 15.
Mustafa Alani, director of security and terrorism studies at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, said he thought that the sudden increase was not an accident.
''There is some sort of policy to go back to kidnappings," Alani said. ''The elections are coming, and these groups want attention."
''That way," Alani added, ''their political statement will get a priority in the Western media."
The first kidnapping was carried out on Nov. 25, when Susanne Osthoff, 43, and her Iraqi driver were reported to be missing near Mosul. German media have reported that a group calling itself the ''Brigades of the Earthquake" demanded the German government suspend its cooperation with the Iraqi government.
On Nov. 26, gunmen in Baghdad abducted four members of Christian Peacemaker Teams.
Al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape and a statement in which the kidnappers, who called themselves the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, threatened to kill the hostages unless all prisoners in US and Iraqi detention centers were freed by this Thursday. .
The activists were Norman Kember, 74, of London; Tom Fox, 54, of Virginia; James Loney, 41, of Toronto; and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, also of Canada.
They had been warned by security officials that they were taking a risk by moving about Baghdad without bodyguards.
French officials had also warned Planche, who was abducted from the Mansour district of the capital, said a French Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jean-Baptiste Mattei.
The kidnappers used three cars to surrounded Planche and take him away, police Captain Qassim Hussein said. Planche is the head of mission for a group that works on water projects funded by the United States.
Loney's sister and mother issued a videotaped plea for the kidnappers to release him. In an AP Television News recording the mother, Claudette Loney described her son's respect for Iraq:
''I feel he has a special bond with Iraqi people, and that's why he's gone over," she said.
Diplomats have said they are in contact with Iraqi authorities to win the release of the hostages.
Anas Altikriti, a member of the British antiwar movement, met leaders of the Iraqi Islamic Party and conservative Sunni clerics who have called for the peace activists' release.
In western Iraq, US and Iraqi troops launched an operation Monday in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, part of a continued effort ''to neutralize the insurgency and set the conditions for a successful Dec. 15 election," a US statement said.
At least one Bradley fighting vehicle was destroyed in Ramadi when it was hit by a roadside bomb, but there were no injuries.
