THE Fallujah offensive took a dramatic personal turn yesterday when Islamic militants kidnapped relatives of Iyad Allawi, Iraq’s interim Prime Minister, and threatened to behead them unless he calls a halt to the assault on the city.

Ghazi Allawi, Dr Allawi’s 75-year-old cousin, was abducted late on Tuesday along with his wife and daughter-in-law.

They were seized from their home in the central Baghdad district of Yarmuk. Within hours a group called Jamaat Ansar al-Jihad (the Partisans of Holy War Group) claimed responsibility for the abductions on an Islamic website.

“We give the vassal Government, in particular the spy Allawi, a deadline of 48 hours to respond to our conditions,” its statement said. “We demand the liberation of all prisoners in Iraq, women and men, and the lifting of the siege and halt to the assault against Fallujah.” It added: “(If the Government) does not satisfy our demands, they will be decapitated.”

The interim Iraqi Government said in a statement: “This is yet another criminal act by terrorists and will not thwart the determination of the Government to combat terrorism.”

George Sada, the Prime Minister’s spokesman, said: “This is a close cousin. Allawi’s father and his father are brothers.”

The Prime Minister had been prominent in the days leading up to the assault on Fallujah, denouncing the resistance fighters who held the town and promising to kill the “terrorists” who live among them. Having seen the fate of other hostages, captured and beheaded by militants, Dr Allawi faces an agonising dilemma.

According to sources in the political party, Iraqi National Accord, quoted by Agence France-Presse, the kidnapping took place soon after sunset on Tuesday. Ghazi Allawi was leaving his home with his wife and daughter-in-law when they were seized by between six and eight masked men and taken away in three cars.

According to the al-Sharqiya television channel there was an exchange of gunfire before the kidnappers escaped. The son of the family, who was also in the house, managed to flee. Dr Allawi’s cousin was described as a businessman who had worked in public administration, with no political interests.

Despite the progress of the US advance on Fallujah, violence and fierce fighting continued in other cities yesterday. A curfew was imposed on the northern city of Mosul, after men armed with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades carried out co-ordinated attacks on four neighbourhoods, and fired rockets towards US military bases.

About 20 masked resistance fighters acted with similar impunity in the Ghaziliya district of Baghdad, where they blocked a bridge across the Tigris and exchanged fire with US troops. Four civilians were injured.

At Baiji in northern Iraq, ten civilians, including three women, were killed and 26 wounded in crossfire between insurgents and American soldiers. There was also fighting in the town of Latifiyah on the main road south from Baghdad.

An American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, and another died from bullet wounds in the southern part of the city.

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