IRAQ Gunmen kidnap French worker

Such tactics seem timed with Saddam's trial as well as the Dec. 15 elections.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Masked gunmen grabbed a French engineer off the streets of Baghdad on Monday, the latest in a spate of kidnappings of Westerners that coincides with Saddam Hussein's trial and the run-up to parliamentary elections.
Bernard Planche joined two Canadians, an American, a Briton and a German taken hostage in the last 10 days.
In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw encouraged the kidnappers of the Briton to make contact, saying "we stand ready to hear what they have to say."
The British Broadcasting Corp. cited a Western diplomat in Baghdad as saying direct contact had been made with the hostage takers. It did not name the diplomat.
Straw, however, underlined the British government's refusal to negotiate with kidnappers or pay ransom.
More than one group?
There is no evidence the kidnappings were coordinated, and those responsible for abducting the German aid worker and four Christian peace activists claim to represent different groups. But the incidents do seem timed to Saddam's trial or the Dec. 15 elections.
Mustafa Alani, director of security and terrorism studies at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, said he thinks the sudden increase is not an accident.
"There is some sort of policy to go back to kidnappings," he said. "The elections are coming and these groups want attention and publicity. That way their political statement will get a priority in the Western media."
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged Monday that the insurgency in Iraq has been stronger than anticipated, but he also said the news media have focused on the war's growing body count rather than progress that has been achieved.
"To be responsible, one needs to stop defining success in Iraq as the absence of terrorist attacks," Rumsfeld said in remarks at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Latest series of abductions
The first in the new wave of kidnappings came Nov. 25 when Susanne Osthoff, 43, and her Iraqi driver went missing near Mosul. German media have reported that a group calling itself the "Brigades of the Earthquake" demanded the German government suspend its cooperation with the Iraqi government.
The next day, gunmen in Baghdad abducted four members of Christian Peacemaker Teams.
Al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape and statement in which the kidnappers, who called themselves the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, threatened to kill the hostages unless all prisoners in U.S. and Iraqi detention centers were freed by Dec. 8.