CNN.com - German becomes 5th Western hostage

Osthoff, 3rd from left, and her driver are reportedly shown in this image obtained by a German TV station.

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BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- A German woman missing in Iraq is believed to have become the fifth Westerner abducted in recent days, Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced. Six Iranian pilgrims were also abducted by gunmen north of Baghdad, AP reported.

The woman and her driver have been missing since Friday and "we must conclude they have been kidnapped," Merkel said following an emergency cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

N-TV, CNN's sister network in Germany, identified the alleged kidnapped victim as 43-year-old Susanne Osthoff.

"The federal government condemns this act in the strongest terms. We send an urgent appeal to the perpetrators to release the two to safety immediately."

Merkel announced an establishment of a crisis unit at the foreign ministry with the sole purpose of dealing with the situation.

ARD, the German public television network, said it had obtained a videotape showing a kneeling, blindfolded woman and a man surrounded by three armed and masked gunmen.

The videotape came with the threat that both hostages would be killed if German authorities will not immediately stop cooperating with Iraqi government, ARD said.

Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder opposed the invasion of Iraq and refused to send troops there after the official end of combat. However, it has been helping with aid and also the training of Iraqi troops and police outside the country.

Merkel, who took office last week, has vowed to stick to Schroeder's policy of refusing to allow Germans to train the Iraqi military inside Iraq.

Osthoff, 43, is a fluent Arabic speaker and an archaeologist, according to The Associated Press. She has worked since 1998 for the Munich-based management consulting firm FaktorM, which said on its Web site she had "organized and supported the distribution of aid goods in Iraq since 1991."

Osthoff's mother, identified only as Ingrid H., told Germany's N24 news channel her daughter "had been kidnapped, and nobody knows any more."

"We're just going to have to see," she said from the Bavarian town of Glonn. "One can only hope and keep their fingers crossed and remain optimistic."

Aid workers abducted

Meanwhile Tuesday, six Iranian pilgrims were abducted near Balad, 90 kilometers (50 miles) north of Baghdad, police Maj. Falah Mohammedawi told AP. It was unclear if the six were going to or coming from Samarra, a central city that houses a shrine to two Shiite saints.

Meanwhile, a Christian organization dedicated to nonviolence said four Western aid workers kidnapped in the Iraqi capital over the weekend were all affiliated with it.

According to Monday's statement on the group's Web page, "On November 26, 2005, two members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and two members of a CPT visiting delegation were taken in Baghdad."

The group provided no other details on the abductions or the identities of those taken, but their governments have said the aid workers include two Canadians, one American and a Briton. The British Foreign Office in London identified the British citizen as Norman Kember.

On its Web site, CPT said it had been present in Iraq more than three years, "providing first-hand, independent reports from the region, working with detainees of both United States and Iraqi forces, and training others in nonviolent intervention and human rights documentation."

Dan McTeague, the parliamentary secretary for Canadians abroad, said the Canadian government was working to find out more about the circumstances surrounding the incident. He added that the government would not negotiate with kidnappers.

Hundreds of foreigners and Iraqis have been seized by insurgents fighting to drive U.S.-led forces out of the country. At least four Canadians have been kidnapped since 2003, including a man who was killed in August, AP reported.