SYDNEY - Australia on Monday rushed an emergency team to Iraq to seek the release of an Australian contractor taken hostage by insurgents but insisted it would not bow to the kidnappers' demand to withdraw its troops.
Prime Minister John Howard, whose country has about 550 troops in the country and is deploying another 350, said foreign policy could not be "dictated by terrorists".
The kidnapping of Douglas Wood, 63, was revealed late Sunday when his captors released a videotape showing him pleading for his life and calling on Australia, the United States and Britain to withdraw their soldiers from Iraq.
Wood has lived in the United States since 1992 and is married to an American. He was reportedly providing services to the US military in Iraq when he was taken hostage.
"Please help me. I don't want to die," Wood says from a sitting position on the floor sandwiched between two masked men armed with assault rifles.
"My captives are fiercely patriotic -- they believe in a strong united Iraq looking after its own destiny," he says, adding that he comes from Alamo in California.
The videotape bears the words Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq. The group has previously claimed responsibility for attacks on US soldiers and Iraqi forces, as well as the kidnapping of a Turk who was freed in September.
"We'll continue to do all we can consistent with our position on not giving in to hostage-takers and we can't alter that position and we won't alter that position," said Howard, one of US President George W. Bush's staunchest allies.
"We can't have the foreign policy of this country dictated by terrorists," he told ABC radio.
Howard said he had been dreading a situation like this and accepted responsibility for any harm done to Australians as a result of his government's decisions.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Wood's kidnapping appeared authentic, although it was not known where and when he had been taken or how long he had been held.
But Australia's troop commitment remained, he said.
Downer said the team heading to Iraq would include diplomats, federal police agents and defense personnel.
"An inter-departmental task force has met and will be deploying an emergency response team," Downer said on national radio.
"That will be getting going as quickly as is humanly possible to go to Iraq to reinforce the efforts that our embassy is making on the ground there," he said.
Downer provided no further details, but when two Australians were reported captured in Iraq late last year, Australia sent a special forces team to the country to prepare a possible rescue.
It was later determined that claims the Australians had been captured was a hoax.
The foreign ministry is in contact with Wood's family, including a brother in Canberra.
05/02/2005 00:29 GMT