Raids seize men linked to British woman’s death in Iraq

US and Iraqi forces raided a suspected insurgent hideout near Baghdad on Sunday and arrested several people believed linked to the killing of British aid worker Margaret Hassan, police and British officials said.

Iraqi police said the raids happened near the town of Madaen, about 40 km southeast of Baghdad and scene of frequent insurgent violence in recent weeks.

They said 11 people were detained, five of whom had admitted complicity in the murder of Hassan.

Hassan, a British national who was head of CARE International in Iraq, was kidnapped last October. She was killed about a month later after appealing in video messages made by her abductors for British forces to withdraw from Iraq.

"We are aware that a raid was conducted and that items were recovered that we believe may belong to Margaret Hassan," a spokesman for the British embassy said.

"There is reasonable evidence to believe that the items were Hassan's ... But until our police have finished their investigation we cannot say definitively. "

He said British police, many of whom are based in Iraq and assist with training Iraqi security forces, were investigating but could not say when their probe would end.

Shortly after Hassan was seized on Oct. 19, a video tape emerged in which her kidnappers threatened to hand her over to the militant group led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

But it was never clear if she was handed over to his group, and no organisation claimed responsibility for killing her. Her body has not been found.

Irish-born Hassan, 59, had lived in Iraq for more than two decades and was widely known in the aid community as a tireless worker for impoverished and marginalised Iraqis.

Her kidnapping came at the height of a wave of abductions of foreigners in Iraq, including two Italian aid workers, British contractor Kenneth Bigley, who was also killed, and two American contractors working with him.

- REUTERS