[Shadow_Group] Fw: Who Killed Margaret Hassan

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

(Likely another Mossad "hit".  Margaret Hassan was considered to be a
'daughter of the Iraqi people' (despite her Irish roots) because of her
dedication to the plight of the Iraqi people and her work with Iraqi
spinal cord trauma treatment centers.  She was beloved in that country. 
It does not make a lick of sense that Iraqi insurgency groups would take
out this revered woman.)

rense.com

Mystery Remains Over 
Who Killed Margaret Hassan
Iraqis Say They Have No Clues To Group Which Shot Aid Worker
By Rory McCarthy in Baghdad 
The Guardian - UK 
11-18-4
 
Iraqi authorities yesterday admitted they still had no clear idea about
who killed the aid worker Margaret Hassan. Investigators are being
hindered by the uniqueness of the case, and the complexity of the
insurgency. 
  
In previous kidnappings, Iraq's several insurgent groups have been quick
to identify themselves and claim responsibility, using videos to make
their demands. From the moment Mrs Hassan was seized her case was
different. 
  
Mrs Hassan, who had Iraqi nationality and spoke fluent Arabic, was taken
from her car as she drove to work at the Care offices in Baghdad on
October 19. Two videos emerged, showing her in an increasingly desperate
state pleading for her life and asking for the withdrawal of British
troops from Iraq. 
  
At one point her kidnappers described themselves as an "armed Islamic
group". 
  
But unlike previous incidents they gave themselves no specific name and
used no banners or flags to identify themselves. 
  
Again in the final video showing her apparent death, shot in the head by
a masked gunman, there was no insignia to identify a particular group. 
  
Efforts were made to begin negotiations with her kidnappers but to no
avail. Information campaigns were started and a poster showing Mrs Hassan
holding a sick Iraqi child was put up on billboards across the capital.
"Margaret Hassan is truly a daughter of Iraq. She is against the
occupation," they read. 
  
Her kidnappers were unmoved. At one point they threatened to hand her
over to Tawhid and Jihad, the extreme militant group based in Falluja
that is led by a young Iraqi named Omar Hadid and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
the wanted Jordanian militant. 
  
But Tawhid and Jihad, which has produced several videos of gruesome
murders including that of Ken Bigley, the British contractor, promised to
release Mrs Hassan if she was handed over to them. 
  
Her case appears to confirm accounts from figures in the insurgency that
the movement is made up of several independent groups with little overall
leadership and with frequently different methods and agendas. 
  
It is most likely she was captured by a radical Sunni Islamic group,
since they form the core of the violent guerrilla movement that has
fought the US occupation. 
  
Among them are several better known groups, including Tawhid and Jihad,
which now calls itself al-Qaida in Iraq, as well as the Islamic Army,
Ansar al-Sunna, the First Army of Mohammad and the 1920 Revolution
Brigades. 
  
But there appear to be other smaller offshoots. For some their agenda
appears to be simply to force the US military and all other Westerners
from Iraq and to destabilise the Baghdad government into collapse. Most
were based in Falluja, at least until the US military operation last
week, but have bases elsewhere including Baghdad and the town of
Latifiya, south of the capital. The mutilated body of a woman, apparently
a westerner, was found on a street in Falluja last week, though British
officials said yesterday they have yet to determine whether it was Mrs
Hassan. 
  
Canon Andrew White, of Coventry Cathedral and the international director
of the Iraqi Institute of Peace, was involved in negotiations to obtain
Mrs Hassan's release. He said that "rogue terrorist groups" had begun to
emerge and that her kidnappers were "very likely criminal". 
  
"One of the worrying things about the development of the whole kidnapping
scenario is that we are no longer dealing with the established groups
where at least we understood something of their methodology. Now
kidnapping is the kind of thing taken up by any kind of rogue terrorist
group," he told the Guardian last night from Dubai. "They don't play by
the rules of kidnapping." 
  
He said the situation in Iraq appeared increasingly out of control. "It
is very difficult to have any sense of where things are going. I don't
think there will be any magical cure to the tragedy at the moment." 
  
He said elections should still be held. "It is really important to push
ahead with the plans, otherwise the insurgents will say they have won.
They are trying to prevent any sort of order being re-established." 
  
The leadership of the insurgent groups are predominantly Iraqi, though
there are other Arab fighters involved at lower levels. Some of their
agendas are regarded as too extreme even by mainstream insurgent figures.

  
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 
  
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1353695,00.html<http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1353695,00.html>

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