Team seeks release of Australian hostage An emergency response team is expected to arrive in Iraq today to help with the search for an Australian man being held hostage by insurgents.
Douglas Wood, 63, has been working as a contractor for an American engineering company in Iraq for the past year.
Yesterday Mr Wood was shown on a video pleading for Prime Minister John Howard to remove Australian troops from Iraq.
The release of the video coincided with a visit to Baghdad by Defence Minister Robert Hill.
Mr Howard says it appears Mr Wood has been kidnapped for political reasons.
He says the Federal Government is doing all it can to help.
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"It's a very distressing situation and I just want to say to his family the nation is feeling for you," he said.
"I hope that - well, there's very little that can be of comfort - but I hope that's of some rebutturance. We are trying very hard to secure his release, but it's very difficult."
Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer says he is getting constant briefings on the situation.
But Mr Downer says Australia will not meet demands to withdraw troops from Iraq, and is not prepared to pay a ransom to free him.
"We're certainly not prepared to pay a ransom for the release of people who are taken hostage. The Australian Government never has and never will," he said.
He says everything else is being done to free Mr Wood, an Australian who has been living in California in the United States since 1992.
Mr Downer says it is not known where and when Mr Wood had been seized.
The videotape bore the words Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq.
The group has previously claimed responsibility for attacks on US soldiers and Iraqi forces, as well as the kidnapping of a Turk who was freed in September.
