Posted on 09/16/2004 7:07:49 AM PDT by TexKat
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen abducted two Americans and a Briton in a brazen attack Thursday on a house in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood where many embassies and foreign companies are based, the Interior Ministry and witnesses said. It was the latest in a wave of kidnappings of foreigners in Iraq.
The three, employees of Gulf Services Company, a Middle East-based construction firm, were seized from a two-story house surrounded by a wall in the al-Mansour neighborhood, said Col. Adnan Abdel-Rahman, a ministry official.
American and British diplomats in Baghdad could not immediately confirm that account, though the U.S. Embassy said it was taking the report very seriously. U.S. troops fanned out across the neighborhood.
Also, a U.S. Humvee hit a roadside bomb Thursday morning south of the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, the military said. Witnesses said the vehicle was ablaze on a main road, but there was no immediate word on casualties.
In reporting the abductions, neighbors said they heard two vehicles drive up to the house around dawn and later noticed that the sliding iron gate was open, so they called the police. They said they didn't know who was living there.
A car was missing from the house, said a police official who asked not to be identified. The official said the three abductees were apparently in the garden when the attack took place and there was no sign of any fighting.
A neighbor who gave his name only as Majid, 23, said he left his house around 6 a.m. during a power outage to switch on a generator.
"I noticed unusual movement in the garage. I heard voices that sounded like someone was trying to drag somebody else," he said. "I was frightened and left the area, but when I came back to the foreigners' house I saw that the outer gate was open and the foreigners' car had gone."
"There was no gunfight," said another neighbor, Suha Mouayad.
Several foreign embassies, contracting and security companies and many prominent Iraqi politicians are based in the al-Mansour neighborhood, which is usually teeming with security guards. It was not immediately clear whether the three were security guards themselves or were involved in reconstruction projects.
Insurgents have kidnapped more than 100 foreigners in a bid to destabilize Iraq's interim authorities and drive coalition forces from the country. Many abductees have been executed.
At least five Westerners are currently being held hostage in Iraq.
Italians Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both 29, were abducted Sept. 7 by armed men from their offices in central Baghdad. The women were working on school and water projects for the aid group "A Bridge To...". There is no word on their fate.
French reporters Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were kidnapped last month by a militant group that demanded France rescind a ban on the wearing of headscarves in public schools. Paris refused and the law has already gone into effect.
An Iraqi-American, Aban Elias, 41, has been held since May 3 by group calling itself the Islamic Rage Brigade.
Thursday's reported kidnapping came a day after villagers found three decapitated bodies in the town of Dijiel, 25 miles north of Baghdad.
The bodies were found Wednesday in nylon bags, the heads in bags alongside them, said Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman of the Interior Ministry. They were all men with tattoos, including one with the letter 'H' on his arm, but no documents were found on them, he said.
A U.S. military official said the bodies appeared to be Iraqis and had their hands tied behind their backs.
While insurgents have often beheaded foreign hostages in their fight against the government and coalition forces, it is not a tactic usually used against Iraqis, who are more often abducted for money.
Residents from a nearby village found the bodies shortly after dawn and notified the Iraqi national guard, said Iraqi Lt. Ahmad Farouk.
An Associated Press photographer saw the three corpses lined up with their heads by their sides on the floor at the guard compound before U.S. troops collected them and handed them over to police. Two wore jeans and shirts and the third wore sweat pants and a T-shirt. All appeared young.
Also Wednesday, militants released a Turkish man identified as Aytulla Gezmen, an Arabic language translator who was taken hostage in late July, according to a videotape obtained by Associated Press Television News. The Turkish Foreign Ministry confirmed he had been freed.
A Jordanian transport company said Wednesday it had ceased to operate in Iraq in the hope of winning the release of one of its drivers, Turki Simer Khalifeh al-Breizat, kidnapped by a separate militant group. The kidnappers gave the company 48 hours Tuesday to pull out.
The developments follow a surge in violence that has killed more than 200 people in the past four days in a brazen and coordinated campaign focused increasingly on the capital — the center of authority for Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and his American allies.
Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) told the British Broadcasting Corp. he feared continued insecurity in Iraq would block planned Iraqi elections in January.
He also reiterated his judgment that the American-led attack on Iraq, conducted without U.N. approval, was in contravention of the U.N. charter. "From our point of view and the (U.N.) charter point of view it was illegal," Annan said in the BBC interview.
____
Associated Press Writers Mariam Fam and Sabah Jerges contributed to this story.
Two U.S. soldiers stand in front of the house in al-Mansur district, where three foreigners were abducted, in Baghdad September 16, 2004. Gunmen snatched two Americans and a Briton from a house in central Baghdad on Thursday, the latest in a wave of abductions of foreigners in Iraq. REUTERS/Faleh Kheiber
U.S. soldiers stand guard outside the house in al-Mansour, Baghdad, Iraq, from which gunmen abducted two Americans and a Briton on Thursday Sept. 16, 2004. The three were employed by Gulf Services Company, a Middle East-based construction firm. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
U.S. intelligence officials prepared a report for President Bush in late July presenting a gloomy outlook for Iraq, saying that at worst the country might descend into civil war, The New York Times said on Thursday. Citing government officials, the newspaper said the classified National Intelligence Estimate outlines three possible outcomes for Iraq through the end of 2005. The worst would be developments that could lead to civil war, and the best would be an Iraq with tenuous stability in political, economic and security terms. In this photo, Iraqi police survey an area destroyed by a blast in the Bataween district in Baghdad on September 16, 2004. (Aladin Abdel Naby/Reuters)
U.S. soldiers check the scene of a roadside bomb at Zayona street in central Baghdad, September 16, 2004. One Iraqi civilian was wounded in the accident, witnesses said. REUTERS/Aladin Abdel Naby
U.S. soldiers investigate outside the house in al-Mansour, Baghdad, Iraq, from which gunmen abducted two Americans and a Briton on Thursday Sept. 16, 2004. The three were employed by Gulf Services Company, a Middle East-based construction firm. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
An injured man is taken to hospital after he was injured in a suspected mortar explosion at al-Sadoun street in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday Sept. 16, 2004. At least 5 people were reportedly injured in the explosion. (AP Photo/Samir Mizban)
A U.S. soldier asks journalists to stay away from the house in al-Mansour, Baghdad, Iraq, from which gunmen abducted two Americans and a Briton on Thursday Sept. 16, 2004. The three were employed by Gulf Services Company, a Middle East-based construction firm. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
British soldiers patrol a street near the port in the southern city of Basra, September 16, 2004. Gunmen snatched two Americans and a Briton from a house in central Baghdad on Thursday, the latest in a wave of abductions of foreigners in Iraq. REUTERS/Atef Hassan
Iraqi police officers march during a graduation ceremony after completing an eight week training course at the Jordan International Police Training Center near Amman, September 16, 2004. About 1,000 police officers, as part of a shortfall of nearly 32,000 who will be trained in Jordan, will return to Iraq where they will assume posts around the unstable country. REUTERS/Ali Jarekji
A Japanese soldier stands guard as Iraqi workers renovate a primary school in Iraq's southern city of Samawa, September 16, 2004. REUTERS/Mohammed Ameen
They should really let civilian workers carry firearms if they so choose.
Why can't even the upscale subdivisions be protected from this kind of stuff? I mean, most places like that here in the US are impenetrable.
I wish the news media would cease concentrating on the negative stuff in Iraq. Really, most things in Iraq are going our way.
I wish the news media would cease concentrating on the negative stuff in Iraq. Really, most things in Iraq are going our way.
The same reason Chechen terrorists can get through in Russia - debilitating corruption in Iraq a problem magnified if you add in sympathetic locals.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two Americans are among three people kidnapped from a house in central Baghdad on Thursday, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.
Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong were seized from their house in Baghdad's upscale al-Mansour district along with a British national, the embassy said. The statement did not provide their ages or hometowns.
"The U.S. government is using all available means to locate them and the Iraqi government is fully assisting in the case," the statement said.
The embassy said the two worked for a private company dealing in construction.
In London, the Foreign Office confirmed that the third person taken hostage is British.
Photographers at the house where two Americans and a Briton were abducted in Mansur, Baghdad. Two Americans and a Briton were kidnapped at gunpoint from their smart Baghdad home, as the two main powers behind last year's controversial invasion became the latest victims in a five-month hostage crisis.(AFP/Sabah Arar)
Interesting comment in a related article I saw on Yahoo there was a line in the article that stated:
" George W. Bush's challenger for November's U.S. presidential election, John Kerry (news - web sites), also questioned Iraq's vote timetable and a leaked U.S. government security analysis showed Washington is gloomy about Iraqi stability and fears possible civil war."
So, again, Kerry's camp is working on the side of the enemy against the United States and her allies.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=2&u=/nm/20040916/ts_nm/iraq_dc
The question is when to start the offensive against the insurgents. If we start it now, it could result in US casualities which would hurt the President's chances of being reelected. Just my opinion, but it is better to start the offensive in the Sunni triangle after President Bush is re-elected.
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