BAGHDAD (AFP) - British officials said they believed Margaret Hassan, a British-Irish aid worker kidnapped in Iraq last month, had been killed by her captors after a video was issued apparently showing her murder.
Doha-based Al-Jazeera television said it had received a video showing "an armed man shooting at a blind-folded woman, who appears to be Margaret Hassan".
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said it was believed the woman killed in the video was Hassan, the 59-year-old head of CARE International`s Iraq operations seized in Baghdad on October 19.
"Our experts have been examining a video which appeared to show that Margaret Hassan has been murdered, to establish whether it is genuine," he said in a brief statement.
"As a result of our analysis we have today had to inform Margaret Hassan`s family that, sadly, we now believe that she has probably been murdered, although we cannot conclude this with complete certainty."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed his condolences to Hassan`s family.
Hassan`s Iraqi husband, Tahseen Hassan, said he was aware of the video and begged the kidnappers to let him know where he could recover her body.
CARE Australia, the charity group which employs Hassan, said it was shocked and appalled by the apparent death and its priority was now to support her husband.
"It is with profound sadness that we have learnt of the existence of a video in which it appears that our colleague Margaret Hassan has been killed," the group said in a statement.
The murder of Hassan, if confirmed, would be the first time that a female hostage has been killed by her abductors.
"Our hearts are broken. We have kept hoping for as long as we could, but we now have to accept that Margaret has probably gone and at last her suffering has ended," said her family in a statement.
The news came as US and Iraqi forces backed by aircraft swept into Mosul to secure police stations and restore order as insurgents in Fallujah fought US-led troops.
The operation to reclaim control of Mosul, which had descended into lawlessness, came as the US military was hit by claims that one of its troops shot dead a wounded, unarmed man during its week-long assault on Fallujah.
About 1,200 US troops moved into Mosul, their biggest operation in the flashpoint city in recent times, striking back at groups of rebel fighters who overran police last week and seized control of police stations.
With combat helicopters and warplanes buzzing overhead, the military targeted isolated pockets of insurgents that it said were continuing to operate in the mainly Sunni Muslim city, 370 kilometres (230 miles) north of Baghdad.
The US military said after the operation that joint US-Iraqi forces controlled all the police stations in the west of the town. "It went well, all of the police stations were reoccupied, all of them," said Lieutenant Colonel Michael Gibler.
US soldiers and rebels also exchanged mortar and light weapons fire early Wednesday in the centre of Ramadi, 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Baghdad, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
No details on casualties were immediately available.
Bloody battles between US troops and insurgents have been going on for several days in the restive city, which is the capital of the province of Al-Anbar. Six Iraqis were killed in Ramadi on Sunday.
Rebels angered by a massive US and Iraqi government offensive on their nearby bastion of Fallujah deployed in force in Ramadi last week.
As the assault in Fallujah entered its second week, sporadic bursts of gunfire crackled through southern districts of the one-time insurgent bastion where the rebels were trying to regroup.
"Very few have given up," said Colonel Michael Regner, chief of operations of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. "They are fighting to the death, and they`re making it difficult on marines and soldiers."
Meanwhile, the military said it was investigating claims that a marine shot dead an unarmed wounded man as he lay in a Fallujah mosque, after pictures of the incident were broadcast on US television.
The Swiss-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday joined a growing chorus of concern over the killing, while criticing the US forces for denying access to the battle-scarred city.
Article three of the Geneva Conventions "clearly bans any attack against a person who is not taking part, or is no longer taking part, in hostilities, that includes those wounded, taken prisoner or a civilian," ICRC spokeswoman Antonella Notari spelt out.
NBC correspondent Kevin Sites, who filmed the incident, said he saw the marine raise his rifle and fire point blank at the head of a man, who was slumped against a wall in a mosque.
US networks and television channels in other countries have widely shown Sites`s footage, taken on Saturday, but halted it in the second before the shot was fired.
The First Marine Division said in a statement released in Iraq that the marine "has been withdrawn from the battlefield pending the results of the investigation."
The military said it wanted to determine whether the marine acted in self-defence, violated military law or failed to comply with the international Law of Armed Conflict.
11/17/2004 - 17:27 GMT - AFP