Families' hope for hostages in Iraq

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The men, who were working as civilian contractors, were kidnapped by armed militants at the Iraqi Ministry of Finance in Baghdad in May 2007.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has pleaded with the hostage-takers to free the Britons "immediately and unconditionally" ahead of the second anniversary of their abduction on Friday.

He said: "The Iraq of today is a different place to that of two years ago. There are signs of progress and reconciliation as the Iraqi people show their commitment to a democratic and peaceful future. Hostage-taking has no part in that future."

One of the captives has been named as IT consultant Peter Moore, from Lincoln, who was working for BearingPoint, an American management consultancy. The other four men were employed by Canadian security firm GardaWorld to guard Mr Moore.

Two of them, Alan and Jason, are from Scotland while the other two, Alec and a second man called Jason, are from Wales.

Over the past two years the kidnappers, calling themselves the Islamic Shiite Resistance in Iraq, have released several videos featuring the captives and making demands.

In February last year a video broadcast by Dubai-based TV station Al-Arabiya showed a bearded and tired-looking Mr Moore asking Prime Minister Gordon Brown to free nine Iraqis in exchange for the British hostages.

Mr Moore also appeared in another video which was sent directly to the British Embassy in Baghdad two months ago.

His stepmother, Pauline Sweeney, said she took fresh hope from the latest footage. She told the BBC: "He looked a lot, lot healthier, a lot better than the first video, which was very distressing. All the way through the video he spoke in the plural. All the videos have been in the singular in the past, which made us think that probably they are all together now."