Australia: SAS sent for hostage crisis

By John Kerin and Brad Norington

A SPECIAL Air Service team last night flew out for Iraq as part of a contingency plan to rescue hostages should a claim that two Australian security guards have been kidnapped by terrorists be substantiated.

And an Australian Federal Police team, specially trained for a hostage crisis in the Middle East, was on standby to negotiate with the Horror Brigades of the Islamic Secret Army.

The terrorists claimed on Monday night they would kill the two Australians unless John Howard pulled Australia’s 300-troop contingent out of Iraq within 24 hours.

The terrorists claimed they had seized two Australians and two Asians, apparently their clients, near the Iraqi city of Samarra.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said last night 147 Australian civilians out of 202 working in Iraq had been accounted for. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials were checking on the remaining known 55 - though there could be more.

The Government had a list of 154 Australians employed as aid workers, security workers or general contractors, but the actual number of Australians believed to be in Iraq was much higher, Mr Downer said.

Mr Downer said it could take several days to account for all Australians in Iraq and to determine "whether the threat was real or a hoax".

Last night there had been no further word from the Islamic Secret Army since its claim it had kidnapped the four men on the highway from Baghdad to the northern city of Mosul was made in a statement in the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Samarra on Monday night.

As the SAS team of between 12 and 30 troopers flew to Iraq, Canberra had got no closer to verifying the threat.

The group has not issued any video or photographs of the alleged kidnap victims, or released any names, raising hopes the hostage claim could be a hoax.

As John Howard and Mark Latham, in the middle of an election campaign, vowed they would never give in to the terrorists, Mr Downer announced a team of West Australian "logistics" specialists was being sent to Iraq. He confirmed the team would provide some "contingency support" in the event that hostages had been taken.

But Mr Downer would not confirm that the team included members of the SAS regiment, which is based at Swanbourne in Perth.

Frank Halliwell, operations director of a West Australian company Australian Professional Bodyguards, told the ABC he could not locate all six of his employees in Iraq. But Mr Downer said he later had received a telephone call from Mr Halliwell inform him that the six employees were safe.

Canberra was also consulting South Korea and Japan in case they had nationals with the two missing Australians.

Earlier Mr Howard and Mr Latham made it clear they would not change Australian foreign police to placate the terrorists. "We do not negotiate with terrorists, we do not bow to terrorists’ demands or threats," Mr Howard said. "We will not compromise in the face of threats of that kind."

Mr Latham said Labor’s policy was very clear and that there could be not negotiation with terrorists.

"I think anyone who negotiates or makes any concessions to terrorists is just setting up further problems into the future," Mr Latham said.

"These are evil people, you can’t make any concessions to them, you need to be strong in the fight against terror."

AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty said that the specially trained 20-member hostage negotiation team could be deployed quickly from Australia to Iraq, following a decision by Cabinet’s national security committee.

"We’ve got hostage negotiators, experts on hostage negotiation and counter-terrorism ready to deploy should the Government require it," Mr Keelty said.

Speaking in Sydney, Mr Keelty said no AFP officers were in Iraq, but two were in nearby Jordan training Iraqi police.

While no AFP officers had currently taken leave to work in Iraq as highly-paid security consultants, he was aware of one NSW police officer on leave without pay in the war-torn country.

No information suggested that the NSW police officer was involved in the alleged hostage crisis, he said.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10770207%5E401,00.html