Charity halts aid after kidnapping
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The CARE International charity has suspended its operations in Iraq the day after the aid agency's chief of operations was kidnapped in Baghdad.
Margaret Hassan, the head of CARE International operations in Iraq, was taken captive early Tuesday. Her captors have so far given no demands or explanations as to why she was snatched.
Hours after the abduction, Al-Jazeera aired a video of Hassan sitting in a room, talking and appearing both tired and anxious. The Arabic-language TV network said the video was accompanied by a claim of responsibility from an unnamed, armed Iraqi group.
Robert Glasser, chief executive officer of CARE International Australia, which employed Hassan as its country director in Iraq, said it was a tough decision to make "given the tremendous need among the poorest of the poor in Iraq."
"We always work in difficult situations, but obviously this situation has just become even more difficult with Margaret's abduction." Glasser said Wednesday.
Hassan, who was born in Ireland, holds duel British and Iraqi citizenships, and has been a highly respected humanitarian official in the Middle East for 25 years.
Insurgents have increasingly turned to kidnapping within Iraq, with some ending in grisly beheadings of their victims. Engineer Kenneth Bigley became the first British hostage killed in Iraq earlier this month; his two American colleagues were beheaded last month.
Hassan is believed to be the eighth foreign woman to be abducted. All the others, including two Italian female aid workers, have been freed unharmed.
Her Iraqi husband, Tahseen Ali Hassan, described the abduction to Al Jazeera, according to a translation from The Associated Press.
"The kidnapping happened when my wife arrived at her work. Two cars intercepted her from front and back. They attacked her car and pulled out the driver and a companion," he said.
"Then they took the car and drove away to an unknown location. This is according to what I heard from the people working in her organization. She was near her workplace (when it happened)."
He said she had never received any threats and, at the time, he had not been contacted with any demands.
'Unaware of motive'
CARE International has had no international staff in Iraq since November 2003. The organization maintained operations during the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, and sponsors health projects, including water sanitation, to Iraqi citizens.
Hassan has been working for the charity for more than a decade and has lived in Iraq for 30 years. Her abduction prompted replies from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern.
Blair told the House of Commons on Wednesday that the whole of Britain was thinking of Hassan. She is "immensely respected" in the country and everything possible was being done to secure her release, he added.
A CARE International statement said the aid group was "unaware of the motive for the abduction."
A senior U.S. State Department official said the United States was contributing to the investigation into the kidnapping with resources, assets and information.
Iraqi authorities, in conjunction with the British, are leading the probe, the official said.
CARE, one of the world's largest independent global relief and development organizations, did not confirm the circumstances of the kidnapping or reveal in what sector of Baghdad it occurred.
CARE International, which operates in more than 72 countries, is one of the few international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to remain in Iraq.
Most NGOs pulled foreign staff out after the two Italian aid workers were kidnapped for three weeks in September.
Correspondent Karl Penhaul, Producer Katie Turner and Assignment Editors Hayat Mongodin and Caroline Paterson contributed to this report.
