May 1, 2005 - The situation in Iraq has reached complete extreme with insurgents attacking every hour everywhere. London-based Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, quoting sources, reported May 1 that U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld secretly visited former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and allegedly offered him freedom in return for a televised request to militants to cease attacks against allied forces in Iraq. The report said Hussein rejected the offer.

Militants have taken hostage a 63-year-old Australian citizen in Iraq, according to a videotape delivered to news agencies May 1. Douglas Wood -- who lives in California and is married to an American -- appears in the tape between two armed, masked men. In the tape, Wood admits that he has done work with the U.S. military and pleads to "[U.S.] President [George W.] Bush, [Australian] Prime Minister [John] Howard [and Californian] Gov. [Arnold] Schwarzenegger ... to take the troops out of here and let Iraq look after itself."

A drive-by shooting occurred May 1 in the Iraqi city of Al Hillah. No one was injured, but police arrested the four gunmen. In a separate attack, a roadside bomb detonated on a road north of Al Hillah, wounding four civilians.Iraqi police reported several insurgent attacks in Baghdad on May 1. Insurgents ambushed security forces with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at a checkpoint in the city, leaving five policemen dead and one wounded. In a separate attack in the Zafaranniyah neighborhood, a car bomb exploded, killing four Iraqi civilians and wounding 12 others. In the western Jihad neighborhood, militants in three parked cars fired on a police patrol with handguns, wounding four policemen. U.S. Army Lt. Col. Clifford Kent said that a suicide bomber attacked a water pump station in southeastern Baghdad.

Five militants confessed to kidnapping and killing British aid worker Margaret Hassan, Iraqi police said May 1. U.S. and Iraqi forces led a May 1 raid into an insurgent cell in Madaen, where they uncovered Hassan's clothes, ID and handbag. Hassan was kidnapped Oct. 19, and a video of her death was aired one month later. Her death was never verified.