Five British Hostages In Iraq “Alive”

An Arabic TV channel, Al-Arabiya, has aired a video claiming to show one of five Britons captured in Iraq eight months ago. A BBC report says: “The five men were seized from Baghdad’s Finance Ministry by gunmen wearing police uniforms on 29 May 2007 without a shot being fired. He (the hostage) asks Prime Minister Gordon Brown to free nine Iraqis in exchange for the release of the Britons.

“The kidnappers appeared to have mellowed their tone since the release of a previous tape in December 2007. The fact that they are holding these men and appear to be keeping them alive, reasonably well fed, not chained up, and that they haven’t apparently executed any of them after more than eight months is encouraging.” More here…

The Times of London says that Al-Arabiya TV station that showed one of the hostage making an appeal to the British Prime Minister,was launched five years ago and has become “the alternative Arab station to Qatar-based al-Jazeera, which has broadcast videos of Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda figures. Al-Arabiya has the financial backing of investment groups in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf states.”