Militia link to Britons' kidnapping

Updated 21.34 Wed May 30 2007

Keywords: Moqtada al-Sadr, Britons, Baghdad, Iraq

Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia may be behind the abduction of five Britons from a government building in Baghdad.

Iraq's foreign minister Hoshiyar Zebari said the kidnappings could be in retaliation for the killing of the militia's top commander by British-backed Iraqi special forces in the southern city of Basra last week.

"We will do everything we possibly can to help" - Tony Blair

US and Iraqi troops have raided Baghdad neighbourhoods, including the Mehdi Army stronghold of Sadr City, in a hunt for the Britons.

They were kidnapped in an audacious daylight raid by dozens of gunmen, police and witnesses said.

The five were at a meeting in Iraq's Finance Ministry building when around 40 men dressed as police commandos sealed off the street and forced their way inside.

Four of the kidnapped men are private security guards and the fifth is the financial expert they were employed to protect. It is not known where the men are being held, and so far there have been no demands for their release.

Mr Zebari said: "It may be the Mehdi Army because the location of the (kidnapping) is in their theatre of operations.

"Their safety is our top priority ... I don't think they will finish them. They are using them for bargaining, but they have not contacted anybody yet."

Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said British officials are working with Iraqi authorities to find out how the Britons were abducted and to secure their swift release.

Interior ministry spokesman Brigadier-General Abdul-Kareem Khalaf dismissed suggestions that the kidnappers, who were dressed in police commando camouflage uniforms and driving official vehicles, were a renegade unit from his ministry.

Interior ministry forces are known to be heavily infiltrated by Shia militias, including the Mehdi Army, and have often been accused of kidnappings and sectarian murders.

But a top official in Sadr's political movement, Abdul Mahdi al-Mutiri, said the scale and organisation of the kidnappings was beyond the Mehdi Army's capabilities.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has promised to do everything he can to secure the release of five British men.