Posted on 04/13/2005 7:58:09 AM PDT by Sax
U.S. Hostage in Iraq Appeals for Life on Video-TV
15 minutes ago Top Stories - Reuters
DUBAI (Reuters) - An American contractor taken hostage in Iraq has urged the U.S. government to negotiate with his captors to save his life, according to a video broadcast by Al Jazeera television on Wednesday.
Latest headlines: · U.S. Hostage in Iraq Appeals for Life on Video-TV Reuters - 13 minutes ago · US hostage urges Washington to quit Iraq: Al-Jazeera AFP - 21 minutes ago · Iraq Violence Flares as U.S.'s Zoellick Visits Reuters - 30 minutes ago Special Coverage
The video showed the man, named by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad as Jeffrey Ake from Indiana, holding up his passport as armed and masked insurgents stood at his side.
Ake was seized from the site of a reconstruction project near Baghdad on Monday. It is not known who he was working for.
Al Jazeera said the hostage "urged the U.S. administration to open a dialogue with the Iraqi resistance ... to save his life."
He also called on U.S. forces to swiftly withdraw from Iraq, the Arabic television channel said.
Dressed in a light shirt, Ake looked nervous on the video, which showed him behind a desk and reading from a statement.
The group behind the kidnapping was not named and no flag or identifying banner was shown, as has been common in several previous tapes of hostages.
More than 150 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq in the past year, either by Muslim militant groups seeking to drive out foreign troops or criminal gangs demanding ransom. About a third of those kidnapped have been killed.
A French journalist, Florence Aubenas, who was kidnapped in January, is still being held by militants, as are three Romanian journalists abducted last month.
Over the past year, Iraqi officials estimate that around 5,000 Iraqis have been kidnapped, most of them by criminal gangs looking to profit from ransoms.
Hang in there, Jeffrey. I don't think the government is going to negotiate with the criminals, but private concerns might. Executives get kidnapped and ransomed all the time in parts of South America. I hope his company can get him out, but I hope even more that he gets rescued, and his kidnappers get gunned down to a man in the process.
I was surprised at how so many actually support these hoodlums...call them "freedom fighters." Yeah...right.
The coalition is accused of torturing prisoners by making them wear underwear on their heads. But it's ok for these thugs to behead our citizens.
Wouldn't it make sense for everyone working over there to have some sort of gps thing somewhere (I would say implanted but that will invoke the ire of the mark of the beast people) on themselves that would make them trackable?
susie
The man on the right has a Dragunov SVD sniper rifle, and the man on the left has a PK Machinegun. Both weapons have been used by various groups fighting the coalition force in Iraq.
If he is the hostage of Islamic terrorists, he is (regettably) as good as dead already. If kidnappers seeking money have him, there is hope.
Prayers for him and his family.
And, I forgot to mention, the bomb factory in Al-Jazeera's basement needs to have an "accident".
This guy's company is 10 minutes away from me. Hopefully, they will release him.
We should put Al Jazeera on notice that the next time they serve as the publicity channel for their terrorist masters, there will be HARM missiles headed for the offending transmitter(s). If they persist, we should target their studio(s) with JDAMs.
IOW, I consider their broadcasts in support of terrorisn to be terrorist acts, and I wish our President viewed them the same way -- and acted accordingly.
GPS is one-way (down)...you need cellular technology to make a "GPS Tracker". And I think the cell coverage in Iraq is pretty poor.
I hope and pray they do too, but I wouldn't count on it. With the Iraqi people turning in some of these terrorists, there might be a chance that some of them might know where these bastards are, free him, and then take care of the terrorists holding him on their own.
I suppose the technology to do such a thing doesn't exist or isn't very good, because otherwise I think people would do it. It would be good for soldiers in combat zones too. Presumably anything implanted could be removed once a person left a danger zone.
These jerks kidnap Iraqis with money too. The new Iraqi government and police forces are going to have to work hard to lower the boom on the lucrative practice of kidnapping.
"Why (if he is a CEO) didn´t he have proper security?
Because he did not want to pay for it. A lot of these people think the Iraqi people love them and they can go where they want to without a problem. There have been plenty of prior incidents that shows them this is not true but they just will not believe it.
I hope you are right, but if it is hard core extremist they may not be interested in money, they want to make a statement.
That is why they need to use professional security teams, they do have GPS and they are heavily armed. Spent 14 months there and never lost a client.
Gosh, it seems to make so much sense!
susie
Why in God's name aren't our people, esp CEO and the like, and service men for sure not wearing GPS devices. These are small enough that you can hide them in your shoes or probably have them surgically implanted.
Nick
What is the cost of a GPS device? Multiply that by 125,000 - 150,000 troops plus thousands, tens of thousands maybe, of contractors...
How many Americans have been taken hostage? In the single digits. So whoever makes these decisons have decided that the cost is not worth the few lives. Other dangers such as IEDs are taking a much higher toll and probably more armor is the top priority for those deciding.
Just speculating, but dollars are usually the reason behind everything that happens or doesn't happen.
Please, they are just and good people. At least think about them in your prayers.
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