Prime Minister John Howard said hopes were growing yesterday that claims an Islamic militant group had kidnapped and was threatening to execute two Australians in Iraq may be a hoax.
The foreign ministry, which has been struggling to account for all Australians in Iraq since the claim was made on Monday, said it had located all but eight of the 229 nationals known to be in Iraq by yesterday afternoon.
But a foreign ministry spokeswoman warned that "the number is fluid" and the kidnap claim could not yet be ruled out.
A group calling itself the Horror Brigades of the Islamic Secret Army released a leaflet late Monday saying it had seized two Australians and two Asians from a convoy near the town of Samarra and would execute them unless Australia withdrew its forces from Iraq within 24 hours.
The deadline passed overnight with no further word.
Howard noted that the group had released no names or photographs of the hostages to back up their kidnap claim and that no authorities in Iraq had reported attacks on a convoy near Samarra on Monday.
"I suppose, as each hour goes by, you grow cautiously more hopeful, but I don't think we should think that it still may not be true," Howard said, adding, "I just don't know. I hope it's not [true], we all hope and pray it's not."
A hoax or not, the incident sparked a political dispute in Australia Thursday in the run-up to national elections on Oct. 9.
Howard's government ordered a special hostage rescue team to Iraq late on Monday in case the kidnap claim proved true. The opposition Labor Party, which is running neck-and-neck in opinion polls with Howard's coalition, protested that under caretaker rules in place during an election campaign, the government was required to consult with it before taking such a policy decision.
"The truth is that if Labor is elected in three and a half weeks' time, we would be in charge of the operation," said party leader Mark Latham.
"So isn't it in Australia's national interest to ensure the alternative government is consulted, given the information and involved from day one about this important decision?" he said.
He went on to accuse Howard of "putting political interests ahead of national interests."
"It's part of a pattern of incompetence of this government," Latham said.
Howard called Labor's complaint "petty."
"The caretaker convention requires you to consult the opposition if you are making a new commitment or proposing a new policy," he said. "It does not require you to talk to them every minute of the day."
Howard provided 2,000 troops to last year's US-led invasion of Iraq and about 850 Australian soldiers remain in the region. Australia's presence in Iraq has become a key election issue with Latham vowing to bring the troops home if he wins the election.
Latham, backed by a number of current and former defense offi-cials, has asserted that Australia's involvement in Iraq has made the country more of a target for terrorists -- a claim Howard has rejected.
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