British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday demanded the release of five Britons being held hostage by an Iraqi group, the Associated Press reported. Brown said his government would do everything in its power to win the freedom of the four security guards and one computer expert who were seized from a government compound in Baghdad about six months ago. The men's captors released a videotape of one of the five victims Tuesday coupled with the demand that Britain pull all its forces from Iraq. It was the first public proof that any of them were alive. «We will do everything in our power to secure our objective, which is the immediate release of the hostages,» Brown said in a televised statement. «(Iraqi) Prime Minister (Nouri al-)Maliki and his ministers and others are doing a tremendous amount to secure the release of the hostages and I want to thank them for what they have done.»
