Wed 3 November, 2004 11:41
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents have mounted fresh attacks in Baghdad and a U.S.-Lebanese contractor has become the latest victim of a kidnapping spree in the run-up to a threatened U.S. assault on rebel-held Falluja and Ramadi.
The violence surged on Wednesday as the world awaited the outcome of Tuesday's presidential election in the United States, which has failed to pacify Iraq since last year's U.S.-led invasion.
Gunmen killed a senior oil ministry official in Baghdad, an interior ministry spokesman said. A car bomb also blew up near a U.S. convoy in the southwest of the city, the military said.
U.S. Marines watched television coverage of the contest between incumbent George W. Bush and challenger John Kerry at their base near Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad.
"A Bush win would mean we would stay the course in Iraq. A Kerry win means we would probably leave before the job is done," said 1st Lieutenant Tony King, 33.
First Lieutenant Sara Hope, 24, had only one thought in mind: "I am leaving in March no matter who wins."
Bush's deadliest Islamist enemy Osama bin Laden said the U.S. president had dragged his country into a quagmire in Iraq and warned for the first time of retaliation for Iraqi deaths.
In a full Internet broadcast of a video partly aired by Al Jazeera television last week, the al Qaeda leader said Bush had launched "an unjustified war on Iraq" against advice.
"More than 15,000 of our people were killed and tens of thousands wounded and more than 1,000 of your people (Americans) were killed and tens of thousands wounded. Bush's hands are sullied with the blood of those on both sides just for oil and to employ his private companies," bin Laden said.
"Remember that for every action, there is a reaction," he said, vowing to fight the United States until it is bankrupt.
The complete 18-minute tape was posted on the Internet after Al Jazeera aired excerpts last Saturday in which bin Laden issued a warning of possible new September 11-style attacks.
Al Jazeera did not broadcast his remarks on Iraq, but the video prompted Bush to declare that Americans would not be intimidated or influenced "by the enemy of our country".
In Baghdad, four gunmen kidnapped Radim Sadiq, a U.S. national of Lebanese origin, from his Lebanese company's office in the capital's western Mansour district at about 11 p.m. (8 pm British time) on Tuesday, the interior ministry spokesman said.
An American, a Filipino and a Nepali were seized on Monday when gunmen stormed a Saudi company villa in Mansour.
BRITISH-IRAQI AID WORKER
The Care International charity that employs kidnapped British-Iraqi aid worker Margaret Hassan said on Wednesday it was distressed by the latest video released by her captors.
The tape showed Hassan fainting on camera with water thrown at her to revive her, a witness who saw the tape told Reuters.
"She was making a very, very emotional plea. She appeared distressed and suddenly fainted on camera. Water was tossed on her," said the witness who asked not to be named.
The video showed a masked gunman speaking, but there was no audio. Al Jazeera said it would not broadcast the tape in full "because of the state in which the hostage appears".
Hassan's unidentified captors threatened to turn her over to a group led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi within 48 hours unless British troops quit Iraq, Al Jazeera said.
Zarqawi's group has claimed responsibility for hostage beheadings and some of Iraq's bloodiest suicide attacks.
"Mrs Hassan's colleagues are profoundly distressed by her condition and urge those holding her to release her without further harm," Care International said of the video.
The interior ministry spokesman said gunmen had killed Hussein Ali, director general of state-owned Refined Oil Products distribution company, as he left his home in Baghdad.
Guerrillas have killed scores of Iraqi officials to try to undermine Iraq's U.S.-backed interim government.
A car bomb blew up near a U.S. convoy on the highway to Baghdad airport, causing no American casualties, the military said. Witnesses said the blast set a U.S. Humvee on fire.
Reuters photographs show U.S. soldiers carrying a corpse wrapped in a black body bag to a military ambulance. A U.S. spokesman said later the body was that of an Iraqi security man.
Attacks and kidnappings have intensified as Marines step up pressure on Falluja and Ramadi before an expected offensive to retake rebel cities to enable elections to go ahead in January.
U.S. planes bombed targets in Falluja overnight, destroying an arms cache and an insurgent command post, the military said.
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