Five Britons abducted in Iraq

FIVE Britons have been abducted from a government building in Baghdad in a brazen kidnapping by gunmen dressed in police uniforms. Diplomatic staff were urgently seeking their release, Britain's Foreign Office said today.

The victims were four bodyguards and a British technology adviser working at the Finance Ministry for BearingPoint, a US consultancy firm.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London today confirmed that the five missing people were British and that diplomatic staff in Baghdad were urgently seeking their release.

“I can confirm that a group of five British nationals were abducted this morning at 0850 UK time, which is 1150 local time, in an incident at the Finance Ministry in central Baghdad,” a spokesman said.

“Officials from the British embassy in Baghdad are in urgent contact with the Iraqi authorities to establish the facts and to try to secure a swift resolution."

The FCO refused to confirm where the men worked but reports from Baghdad said that the four security guards were employees of GardaWorld, a Canadian firm that also protects Canon Andrew White, the vicar of St George’s Church in Baghdad, and his Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East (FRRME).

In an email to Times Online today, titled "urgent prayer request", Canon White said: "Four of our security guards have been kidnapped along with one other British client. They were taken from the Ministry of Finance, which is Shia controlled."

Canon White, who has extensive experience in previous hostage negotiations across the Middle East, said he knew the men personally because their company had long offered its services "free of charge" to escort and protect his organisation's work building bridges across communities.

“I know these individuals. I eat with them every day, they look after me. They are not just here to make money. They seriously want to make peace.

“They collect us from the airport, bring us to Baghdad, provide all our food and they have never taken one penny from us.

"We are trying to contact all of our Iraqi friends to find out who has them. The fact that they were taken from a Shia ministry by people dressed as policemen and using police cars is quite worrying. It shows you can't trust anybody any more."

A Western security adviser in Baghdad told The Times that the four security guards were believed to be British, as was the client.

"They have gone missing," he said, adding that the government's crisis-management team COBRA (Cabinet Office Briefing Room A) were meeting in the UK.

"The British embassy has gone into shut down. It's not looking good," the security adviser added.

The group was snatched just before noon yesterday, local time, from a Finance Ministry building in a Shia area of east Baghdad. The kidnappers are believed to have turned up in large numbers with police uniforms and documentation and taken them away.

Although British security guards have been killed and injured in Iraq, this is believed to be the first occasion any have been kidnapped.

The four security guards were being employed to protect an employee of BearingPoint, a US consultancy working at the Finance Ministry. Steve Lunceford, a spokesman for the company, confirmed that one of their staff had been abducted.

"We have been informed that a BearingPoint employee working in Iraq was taken from a work site early this morning. We are fully cooperating with local and international authorities to ascertain facts surrounding this incident and are supporting recovery efforts," he said.

GardaWorld is one of the largest private security firms working in Iraq, with hundreds of employees in the country. A spokeswoman at the company's headquarters in Montreal confirmed that four of its staff had been taken hostage.

Iraqi police said that the kidnapping occurred in the street outside the Finance Ministry, but a witness told Reuters news agency that it took place inside the government building.

The witness said that the gunmen, led by a police major, entered a lecture room where Iraqi employees were receiving a briefing about how to store their electronic contracts.

"Where are the foreigners, where are the foreigners?" The gunmen demanded, before dragging them away. The witness said one Westerner had escaped the kidnapping because he was sitting apart from the rest of the group.

No one has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and it is unknown whether the abduction was carried out by a group looking to profit financially from the mass hostage-taking or whether they were taken by insurgents.

Kidnappings by men in police uniform have often been blamed on Iraq's Shia militias, which control many police and Interior Ministry forces up and down the country. But the Finance Ministry is run by a Shia minister, which is thought to make that less likely.

British forces in Iraq have been on alert for a backlash from Iraq's Shia factions since last Friday, when Abu Qadir, the leader of the powerful al-Mahdi Army was killed in a joint British-Iraqi operation in Basra.

Thousands of private security guards are employed in Iraq, many of them are British ex-servicemen employed to protect officials and workers at risk of kidnap. Most of those who take up the offers are from the elite regiments of the armed forces.

The men are paid up to around £500 per day, by private companies such as the Control Risks Group and GardaWorld. The FCO spent £110 million on private security in the first two years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Robin Horsfall, a former SAS soldier who has worked as a security guard in the Middle East said: "I know of serving soldiers who are returning, signing off and then taking the opportunity to go back to Iraq to provide security services out there.

"If you think of what a man earns in the UK, maybe £500 a week, we’re talking about £500 a day. You could pay off your mortgage if you do that for a year."

BearingPoint is the leading US consultancy advising the Iraqi Government on economic reconstruction and, particularly, the development of the Iraqi oil industry. Since 2003 it has run projects in the Iraqi Finance Ministry, advising on market regulations and training civil servants as part of more than $200 million of business in Iraq.

The company, which broke off from the KPMG group in 2002, has also won lucrative contracts in Afghanistan but has been criticised for falling more than a year behind reporting its own financial results and for having an unfair advantage in bidding for consulting contracts because of its close involvement in the establishment of the finance ministries in Kabul and Baghdad after their respective invasions.

Three British civilians have been abducted since troops entered Iraq in 2003.

Norman Kember, 76, was rescued by British forces but Kenneth Bigley, 62, and Margaret Hassan, 59, were both murdered.

Mr Kember was in the country as part of a Christian Peacemaker Team when he was captured on November 26 2005. He was rescued by British Special Forces four months later.

Margaret Hassan was snatched after living in Iraq since 1972, she had learnt Arabic and even became an Iraqi citizen under Saddam Hussein’s regime. Mr Bigley was a civil engineer from Liverpool he was beheaded on October 7 and a video of his murder was posted online.

More than 200 foreign nationals have been abducted in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion. At least 60 of those kidnapped have been executed, 41 in 2004, 13 in 2005 and six in 2006.

Elsewhere in Baghdad a minibus exploded killing at least 23 people and injuring 68. The vehicle was parked in Tayaran Square when it exploded at around 1pm in an area surrounded by shops and bus stops.