BAGHDAD, Iraq - CARE International suspended operations in Iraq today after gunmen seized the woman who ran the humanitarian organization's work in the country. The victim's Iraqi husband appealed to the kidnappers to free her "in the name of humanity, Islam and brotherhood."

Margaret Hassan, who holds British, Irish and Iraqi citizenship, was seized early Tuesday on her way to work in western Baghdad after gunmen blocked her route and dragged the driver and a companion from the car, her husband said.

Hassan, who is in her early 60s, is among the most widely known humanitarian officials in the Middle East and is also the most high-profile figure to fall victim to a wave of kidnappings sweeping Iraq in recent months.

The Arab television station Al-Jazeera broadcast a brief video showing Hassan, wearing a white blouse and appearing tense, sitting in a room with bare white walls. An editor at the station, based in Qatar, said the tape contained no audio. It did not identify what group was holding her and contained no demand for her release.

Iraqi officials refused comment on the case, citing the need for security to protect her life.

"I would like to tell the kidnappers that we are in the holy month of Ramadan and my wife has been helping Iraq for thirty years and loved this country," her husband Tahseen Ali Hassan said today on Al-Arabiya television.

The husband told Al-Jazeera that his wife had not received threats and that the kidnappers had not contacted anyone with any demands as of Tuesday night.

Hassan has lived in Baghdad for 30 years, helping supply medicines and other humanitarian aid and speaking out about Iraqis' suffering under international sanctions during the 1990s.

Early today, CARE Australia, which coordinates the international agency's Iraq operations, announced it had suspended operations because of the abduction, but it said staff would not be evacuated. It was unclear how many non-Iraqis work for CARE here.

Many non-governmental organizations began withdrawing international staffers after attacks on foreigners and their institutions began in earnest in the summer of 2003.

"Our staff are not operating currently there, they're certainly not working there now in light of the current situation," Robert Glasser, CARE Australia's chief executive officer, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

In other developments, a suicide bomber detonated his car today near a U.S. patrol on the airport road, injuring two American soldiers and two Iraqi police, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. The road is among the most dangerous in Baghdad.

U.S. aircraft rocketed targets in the insurgent stronghold Fallujah before dawn today, leveling a house and killing six people who had just returned home having fled the city a week earlier, witnesses said. Another rocket at a women's college failed to explode, residents said.

Kidnappings have added new pressure on U.S. and Iraqi forces already struggling to combat a virulent Sunni Muslim insurgency.

Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the gen

eral in charge of protecting Baghdad, told reporters Tuesday that the city is still far short of the numbers of Iraqi policemen needed to secure the city and the force won't be up to strength in time for national elections in January.