- Two British Muslim leaders yesterday began in earnest
their attempt to secure the freedom of the hostage Ken Bigley by meeting
senior Iraqi political leaders in Baghdad.
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- Afterward, Daud Abdullah, the assistant secretary general
of the Muslim Council, said Mr Bigley's captors would be forgiven for all
their "wrong-doing" if they released him.
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- Meanwhile, the US military launched its third air strike
in 24 hours on the insurgent stronghold of Falluja, the base of the Islamist
militant group thought to be holding Mr Bigley. Doctors said 15 people
were killed and 30 injured, including women and children.
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- Dr Abdullah and Musharraf Hussain, an imam who runs an
Islamic institute in Nottingham, made several public appeals in Baghdad
yesterday for the release of Mr Bigley.
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- They met Iraq's president, Ghazi al-Yawar, and the head
of the largest Sunni Muslim political party, Mohsin Abdul Hamid. It was
not immediately clear how much the meetings would achieve, as both men
represent the government that the kidnappers have vowed to destroy.
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- Mr Bigley was seized from his home in western Baghdad
10 days ago with two American colleagues, who have both been beheaded.
Their deaths were filmed and claimed by Tawhid and Jihad, a group led by
the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
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- Dr Abdullah, 49, appealed to the kidnappers to release
the Briton, saying that the crime would be forgiven. "We believe that
whoever is holding him you will not only be rewarded by Allah but your
sins will be covered up and you will be forgiven for all your wrong-doing,"
he said.
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- His council opposed the war in Iraq, he said, but also
opposed as unjust the killing of non-combatants.
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- "It is un-Islamic to ask someone to bear the sins
of another," he said. "Whatever mistakes, errors, sins or crimes
the British committed, we don't believe a British national should be held
responsible. Mr Bigley is a victim as much as civilians in Falluja are
victims."
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- He criticised the US attacks on Falluja. "We will
not condone acts against defenceless civilian people whether they be British
or Iraqi."
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- He admitted they had heard "conflicting news"
about Mr Bigley's fate, but said: "We will always assume that he is
alive until we can prove that he is dead."
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- A statement released on the internet at the weekend claimed
Mr Bigley had been killed, but last night, the director of the London-based
Islamic Observations Centre told Reuters his group had issued an appeal
through mediators in Iraq and received a reply that Mr Bigley was alive.
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- Security in Baghdad is now so poor that Dr Abdullah and
Dr Hussain have to sleep inside the highly-fortified Green Zone, which
houses the Iraqi government and the US and British embassies. They travel
around the city only with armed guards and flak jackets.
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- "I hope we have appealed to the sanity and the humanness
of the captors and I hope that we have given the message that Muslims are
also caring and sympathetic to the Bigley issue," said Dr Hussain,
45. He expressed concern that the war in Iraq had left many young Muslims
in Britain angry and frustrated.
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- In Baghdad a senior US military official said yesterday
that he believed operations in Falluja were weakening the Zarqawi group.
He said around 100 suspects had been killed or captured in raids in the
past four weeks.
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1313385,00.html
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