BAGHDAD, Iraq - Margaret Hassan, the kidnapped Iraq director of the aid group CARE International, pleaded for her life in a video that played on the Al-Jazeera Arabic news network Friday, asking the British government to do something to win her release.
In Baghdad, religious leaders called on Muslims to help residents of Fallujah, Iraq, defend the embattled city from an anticipated offensive by U.S.-led multinational forces.
On the tape, Hassan begged for someone to help her in what might be her "last hour." She looked haggard and frail and sounded distressed.
"Please help me," she kept saying. The tape did not identify who had kidnapped her or what they were demanding. Hassan asked the British people to help her and for their government not to move troops from the south toward Baghdad, as the American government had asked them to do.
Her plea shook many residents here, who perhaps naively assumed the kidnappers would not keep holding a woman who had lived in Iraq for 30 years, spending most of that time in humanitarian work helping its residents. Six women have been kidnapped in Iraq recently, but none has been killed or harmed.
As Hassan wept and said she did not want the same fate as Kenneth Bigley, the British national beheaded earlier this month, her safe return seemed less certain.
"Please help me. The British people, tell Mr. Blair to take the troops out of Iraq and not bring them here to Baghdad," Hassan said. "That's why people like myself and Mr. Bigley are caught. And maybe we will die like Mr. Bigley."
Neither CARE, which is based in London, nor the British government had any comment about the tape as of Friday night. CARE has suspended its operations in Iraq since the kidnapping Tuesday, which occurred as Hassan was on her way to work.
Although born in Dublin, Ireland, Hassan has British, Iraqi and Irish citizenship. She is married to an Iraqi and her friends said she had converted to Islam.
On Thursday, her husband, Tahseen Ali Hassan, held a news conference, saying: "I don't know who has kidnapped her but they should know that my wife has worked almost all her life for the Iraqi people and considers herself an Iraqi."
In a familiar pattern, the kidnappers delivered the tape showcasing their hostage to Al-Jazeera, and the Qatar-based news organization defended its decision to air it.
"Al-Jazeera is not a political party and it is not with or against anyone. We are just trying to deliver a message to the Arab audience," said Jihad Ballout, a spokesman for Al-Jazeera.
Ballout added only newsworthy portions of such tapes are shown and the network plays them less frequently as the day progresses. He said playing the tapes did not contribute to the epidemic of kidnapping, calling that "part of the Iraqi reality."
The network, which the Iraqi government has banned from broadcasting in its nation, has aired Hassan's husband's appeals repeatedly as well as those by Irish Prime Minster Bertie Ahern.