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Iraqis in Australia blast insurgents for threatening hostage

Senior Iraqi leaders in Australia yesterday condemned the kidnapping of an Australian engineer in Iraq and advised his family to use "every channel available" to secure his release.

Douglas Wood, 63, a California resident with an American wife, was shown in a video released Sunday pleading with US, British and Australian leaders to pull their troops out of Iraq. He is shown sitting on the floor, his hands cuffed, flanked by two masked insurgents brandishing automatic weapons.

Mohammed al-Salami, the Australian representative of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution -- a Shiite political party in Iraq -- said he was "disgusted" by the insurgents, who he blamed for destabilizing Iraq.

"We have been consistent right from the beginning that we totally condemn any act of violence or terrorism upon the allied forces as well as the innocent people [of Iraq]," he told reporters by telephone from the western city of Perth.

"They come [to Iraq] to build our country and they should be protected, not harmed," he added.

Al-Salami praised the Australian government for sending a task force to Baghdad to try and help Wood, but advised his family not to rule out paying a ransom to secure his release.

"They have to use every channel available," he said, adding that the family should also enlist the help of senior Muslim clerics in Iraq to speak out against the kidnapping and urge Wood's release.

Al-Salami said the family should not underestimate the power of emotional pleas to the media, and that messages carried by women and children would likely have greater impact than appeals by Wood's male relatives.

Still, he said, Wood's release could not be guaranteed: "There is nothing black and white. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you don't."

Australia's top Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Sheik Mohammed Hussein al-Ansari -- the local representative of Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani -- slammed the hostage takers as criminals who defiled Islam.

"Those people, they have no religion or denomination. They are a bunch of criminals and terrorists," he said, speaking through a translator.

"They are using the name of Islam but they are not generally a Muslim people."
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