( AFP ) - Five British hostages who were kidnapped in Baghdad more than a year ago are alive and Iraqi authorities know where they are being held, Iraq's most senior security official told the BBC on Saturday.
Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's National Security Advisor, told the BBC: "We have a very good, strong intelligence telling us they are alive and we roughly know the area where they are.
"But we don't want to be aggressive in our approach, not to risk their lives."
The men -- an IT consultant and his four bodyguards -- were seized at the Iraqi finance ministry in May 2007.
The computer expert has been named as Peter Moore, from the eastern English city of Lincoln, who was working for US management consultancy BearingPoint.
The identity of the other four men has not been revealed, although it is known they were employed by Canadian security firm GardaWorld to guard Moore.
Rubaie spoke to the BBC after meeting a senior Anglican churchman who visited Baghdad.
The Right Reverend Michael Lewis met senior religious and political figures including Ayatollah Hussain Sadr, cousin of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Appealing for the men's release, the bishop said: "It can be an appeal that remembers the families of the five who are held and I make that appeal.
"I ask them to consider messages that are being passed to them from many sources asking for mercy and compassion."
The men's abductors, calling themselves the Shiite Islamic Resistance in Iraq, have released two videos of their captives.