Security chief's view on kidnap

Mr Geddes is a regular visitor to Iraq

One of the UK's leading security consultants says the kidnapping of aid co-ordinator Margaret Hassan in Iraq may be the work of a new kidnap group.

Will Geddes of International Corporate Protection (ICP) said footage of Mrs Hassan did not show her captors posed around her as in previous kidnaps.

He said he believed the kidnapping of Care International's Iraqi chief was financially, not politically motivated.

But he said it was unsual Mrs Hassan's kidnappers had not yet issued a demand.

Mr Geddes told BBC News Online: "No ransom has been issued, no demand has been made. What often happens in a kidnap is that the kidnappers give a 'proof of life' after they had made their initial demand.

'PR potential'

"We have had the proof of life, but we haven't had the demand yet," said Mr Geddes, who has worked in threat protection for 17 years.

Mr Geddes who set up ICP, one of the UK's first corporate security consultants, and is now its managing director, regularly travels to Baghdad and other parts of Iraq.

Mrs Hassan has been shown on video looking "stressed"

The kidnapping of Mrs Hassan, an internationally-respected aid chief who has lived in Iraq for 30 years, comes just weeks after Briton Ken Bigley was taken hostage and then executed.

Jordanian-born militant Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi's militant group Tawhid and Jihad admitted they had killed Mr Bigley last week.

Mr Geddes said: "The kidnap seems a PR exercise in the same way the kidnapping by Zarqawi of Ken Bigley was, prior to selling on to another kidnap group."

'Hands bound'

Less politically-motivated professional kidnapping groups are more interested in delivering the captive free after a ransom has been paid than killing the person over a political ideology, he said.

Mr Geddes said: "In the video she looks very stressed, which is understandable. It is a very short clip, but it looks to me as if her hands are bound behind her back.

"The group have made it very obvious they have gone through her identification, which includes her work ID... and have made it clear they know who she works for."

Kidnappings of westerners have often resulted in videotapes being sent out showing the captives surrounded by masked or disguised militants. Executions have often been filmed as well.

Mr Geddes said the fact the video did not show this tactic could mean Mrs Hassan has been taken by a previously unknown kidnapping group.

"It is possible we are dealing with a new financially motivated criminal group," he said.

The group holding Ken Bigley demanded the release of women prisoners

Kidnappings of Iraqi nationals have been rife since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime caused by the US-led invasion last year. Many business leaders and doctors have fled crime-ridden Iraq for nearby Jordan.

The rise in kidnappings was initially blamed on the release of many criminals back into society after an amnesty by Saddam shortly before the invasion.

But Mr Geddes said many criminals had been put back on the streets after western forces took over the country. He said he thought there were now as many as five kidnappings in Iraq every day.

He said the vast majority of kidnappings in Iraq, like in the rest of the world, were resolved without the need for police or security involvement.

With such a high-profile person as Mrs Hassan, Mr Geddes said he presumed Care International had a "crisis management plan" in place to deal with the situation.

"I'm sure they are trying to deal with the crisis through the process they have set up," he said.