A coincidence, or a deal done behind scenes?

EVERY government knows it. Anyone who negotiates with terrorists, or even gives the impression that they are prepared to negotiate with terrorists, is asking for trouble.

That is what made the last few days a nightmare for the British government. Try to save Kenneth Bigley by making concessions to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? Unthinkable. Convince his family that it was not possible to do more to prevent Zarqawi hacking off his head? Impossible.

So the suggestion from the Iraqi government yesterday that it might comply with Zarqawi’s demands by releasing two of the most important women in Saddam Hussein’s regime took everyone by surprise. It raised the possibility that Britain had secured a deal.

Was it just coincidence, as the Iraqi government insisted, or had there been behind-the-scenes arm-twisting?

Magnus Ranstorp, director of the centre for the study of terrorism and political violence at St Andrews University, said the government may have tried to establish some sort of dialogue with the kidnappers through intermediaries, but it will not have negotiated on concessions, because it is not its way, and it would play into Zarqawi’s hands.

"When it comes to people associated with Zarqawi, they are as interested in the psychological warfare element of this to influence events," he said. "In a sense they are staging theatre. The psychological element is important in instilling fear, and they are very skilled in manipulating media outlets. Zarqawi wants to create political pressure at home for the withdrawal of foreign forces. It is the perfect asymmetric form of coercion."

His colleague, Professor Paul Wilkinson, said the government knew it could not give in. "The government cannot let its heart rule its head. It has to think about the well-being of all the civilians there and all the coalition personnel from the forces. There are thousands of people whose lives are affected by this, not just the British."

Some governments which had signed up to the coalition have quickly changed their minds under pressure.

The Philippines pulled its troops out, to the consternation of the other members of the coalition, to secure the freedom of one truck driver, Angelo de la Cruz. The Spanish could not get out fast enough after the Madrid train bombings. Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua have also gone, worried about the danger to their people.

Zarqawi has publicly threatened the Polish contingent in Iraq; opinion polls in Warsaw show that 70 per cent want the troops to come home.

Strangely, no-one directs their anger at the terrorists.

In Britain, where bored football crowds still regularly break into choruses of "No surrender to the IRA", there was no shortage of callers to phone-in radio programmes demanding that the government give in. Some said they understood why he was doing what he did. It was left to the chairman of Liverpool’s mosque and Islamic institute, Akbar Ali, to put Zarqawi and his thugs in perspective.

He said: "This sort of terrorism, taking hostages and murdering them, is completely and utterly un-Islamic, and they have no right to use the name of Islam or say they are doing it in the name of God."

No wonder the government was at a loss to know what to do. How could they have expected so many of their own people, so solid in the past in the face of terrorism and adversity, to crumble so quickly?