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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Sheik vows to save Wood's life |
| 2005-05-06 |
| AN Iraqi Sunni sheik contacted to intercede with insurgents holding Australian hostage Douglas Wood has reportedly promised to get the captive released alive. Australian journalist Paul McGeough said he had shown a video of the Wood family pleading for their brother to be released to Sheik Hassan Zadaan and he promised to return Mr Wood alive. Mr McGeough said it was "highly probable that he laid eyes on Douglas Wood". "I understand from him that Douglas Wood is being held about 30km from Baghdad which puts him in that south-west arc from the city," Mr McGeough said. However, the sheik did report that Mr Wood appeared to be in the hands of Islamic extremists possibly associated with the network of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. "He (the sheik) suggested that they were aligned rather than a part of, when he described them as Salafists," said Mr McGeough, a Fairfax journalist. "Salafism is a virulent strain of Islamist thinking that is the core of the Zarqawi view of the world. So to that extent they are aligned." The sheik has reportedly been contacted by member of the Australian team despatched to Baghdad to liaise with US, British and Iraqi officials in a bid to secure Mr Wood's release. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, speaking from New York yesterday, said the Australian team had been given great support. "I am far from giving up," he said. "I still remain as determined as I have ever been and I am very proud of the work that our team on the ground is doing. "The public internationally and in particular in Australia will understand if we don't give too much in the way of briefing of operational matters. "Obviously the more that comes out publicly the harder that unfortunately can make it for us." |
| Posted by:God Save The World |