UK 'working for hostage release'

Lil Bigley begged her son's captors to show mercy

Foreign secretary Jack Straw said the UK was doing all it could to secure the release of Kenneth Bigley.

Speaking to the UN shortly after a TV appeal by the Iraq hostage's mother, Mr Straw said "our thoughts and prayers" are with the Bigleys.

Lil Bigley, 86, said: "Would you please help my son? He is only a working man who wants to support his family.

"Please show mercy to Ken and send him home to me alive. His family need him. I need him."

Mrs Bigley, speaking from her home city of Liverpool, fell ill afterwards and was taken to hospital, but later returned home.

Her sons Philip, 49, and Stan, 67, said she had asked to be allowed to help.

He is only a working man who wants to support his family Lil Bigley 'Keep hope alive' - Waite Profile: Kenneth Bigley

Kidnappers have threatened to murder 62-year-old civil engineer Mr Bigley unless the UK and US release all women held in Iraqi jails.

They have already beheaded two Americans captured with Mr Bigley in Baghdad a week ago.

On Thursday night, armed men kidnapped two Egyptians from their Baghdad office, the third such abduction in less than three weeks.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with their families and we continue to do all we can to secure Mr Bigley's release," Mr Straw told the UN.

He said there was an "urgent need to combat global terrorism", which he called a "menace directed at us all".

Mercy plea

A film of Mr Bigley pleading to Prime Minister Tony Blair to save his life was posted on an Islamic website.

But Britain has ruled out negotiating with the kidnappers, and the US says it will not allow the release of the woman scientist Dr Rihab Rashid Taha being held in Iraq.

Mr Blair spoke to the family, who are staying at Mr Bigley's mother's home in Walton, for a second time shortly before her appeal.

Sombat Bigley released an appeal on Thursday

The Tawhid and Jihad Group, led by al-Qaeda suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is holding Mr Bigley.

Earlier his wife Sombat, who lives in Thailand and has been married to him for seven years, made another appeal.

Referring to a video released by his captors which showed him begging for his life, she said: "Thank you for allowing me to see Ken when he made his appeal.

"I desperately want to be reunited with my husband. I plead for your mercy now and beg that you release Ken so that I may be with him again and so that he may also be reunited with his family in England.

"As a loving wife, I beg you once more for mercy."

On Monday, the kidnappers released footage showing American Eugene Armstrong being killed by a masked man said by the CIA to be Mr Zarqawi.

A second American, Jack Hensley, was killed 24 hours later. A video purportedly showing his execution was posted on Wednesday evening.

The family has also asked the Irish government for help, as Mrs Bigley was born in Ireland.

Foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Labour Party Michael Higgins, who opposed the Iraq war, told the al-Jazeera news channel he was willing to travel to Iraq in an effort to free Mr Bigley.