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Video shows four activists held in Iraq

(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-30 09:01

"One can only hope and keep their fingers crossed and remain optimistic," her mother, Ingrid Hala, told Germany N24 news station.

Hala said she had not heard from her daughter for about five years, and her uncle, Peter Osthoff, said his niece had broken almost all ties with her family, including a daughter who will be 12 in December.

"She has almost no contact with any relatives," he told the AP.

Germany's Central Council of Muslims called for Osthoff's immediate release.

The Iranian pilgrims were abducted Tuesday near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, police Maj. Falah Mohammedawi said, but it was not clear if the six were going to or coming from Samarra, a central city that houses a shrine to two Shiite saints.

Iraq and Iran, predominantly Shiite countries, reached an agreement earlier this year on pilgrim visits, which excludes trips to Shiite shrines in Baghdad and Samarra because of the dangerous security situation. The pilgrims appear to have been violating that agreement.

Insurgents have kidnapped aid workers, journalists and contractors in an attempt to drive foreigners out of the country or to win large ransoms.

Since May, abductions have fallen off considerably, mainly because many Western groups left Iraq and security precautions for those remaining have been tightened, with foreigners staying in barricaded compounds and moving only in heavily guarded convoys.

The last American to be kidnapped was Jeffrey Ake, a contract worker from LaPorte, Ind., who was abducted April 11. He was seen in a video aired days afterward, held with a gun to his head, but there has been no word on his fate.