WASHINGTON (AFP) - The group that kidnapped an American in Iraq has failed to contact anyone with power to listen to their demands, the hostage's brother said.
"They have not tried to contact anyone really who has any power to listen to their demands," Ty Hensley, whose brother Jack Hensley was kidnapped along with another American and a Briton in their Baghdad home on Thursday, told the Fox News Channel.
"They have not made a sincere effort to achieve their objectives," Ty Hensley said.
British engineer Kenneth Bigley, Eugene "Jack" Armstrong and Hensley work for a private Gulf-based equipment firm involved in reconstruction projects.
Militants loyal to Iraq's most wanted man, suspected Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, on Saturday purportedly issued a 48-hour deadline to execute the men after claiming a string of deadly bombings across the country.
In a videotape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, the hostage takers said their captives would be killed unless Iraqi women prisoners were released from the high-security coalition-run Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca prisons.
Ty Hensley said his brother was "well-liked" by Iraqis and "conducted himself very well when he was a guest in their country. He befriended many of them."
"I know that the Iraqi people are good people, and they want him to be released," he said.
Hensley's wife Patty on Sunday appeared on CNN to make a somber plea for mercy and the release of her husband and his two colleagues.