Posted on 11/19/2006 9:31:46 AM PST by TexKat
BASRA, Iraq (AFP) - Iraqi and coalition forces were searching for the five Westerners kidnapped three days ago from near the Kuwaiti border by militiamen dressed in police uniforms.
Four US citizens and an Austrian, all working as security guards for a Kuwaiti company, were abducted on Thursday while they were escorting a 49-truck convoy near the southern Iraqi town of Safwan.
"The search continues and we have still not been able to locate them," said Mohammed Ali al-Mussawi, chief of operations at the police headquarters of Basra, the southern Iraqi city.
On Saturday Mussawi said the police had identified the area where the five were believed to be held captive.
"We have identified the area where they are held. I can't disclose the place," Mussawi told AFP.
Iraqi forces carried out a series of operations overnight Sunday in search of the hostages, another police officer from Basra said on condition of anonymity.
"Some places were busted. But there has been no success," he said.
On Thursday the five security guards were stopped at what appeared to be a checkpoint by men dressed in police uniforms. They were later taken away at gunpoint.
Since their abduction -- the second major within a week -- there has been confusion over their fate.
On Friday a Basra provincial official said that one of the hostages -- an American -- had been found dead and another two Americans had been rescued in a police raid.
But Mussawi denied these reports.
"If someone says he knows about the hostages, it is a lie. Nobody knows anything about them at the moment," he told AFP Sunday.
Their employer, the Kuwait-based Crescent Security Group, also said it was unaware of the fate of the five men.
The British military said the search was continuing.
"We have no information on them. All I say is that security forces are searching for them," British military spokesman Lieutenant Commander Mike Baker said.
The latest abduction came just a few days after dozens of men were seized in an audacious raid from a government ministry building in Baghdad.
A group of armed men dressed in police uniforms raided a building of the higher education ministry and drove off with around 150 men, many of them employees of the ministry.
About 75 people are still believed to be held hostage, while those freed faced torture at the hands of the captors, the minister for higher education Abed Dhiab al-Ujaili said last week.
Apart from the daily bombings and sectarian killings, Iraq is struck by rampant kidnappings, many of them by criminal gangs for ransom.
The abduction of the five Westerners also appears to be the work of a "criminal gang," Mussawi said.
In the past, many foreigners kidnapped by criminal gangs have often been handed over to insurgent groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic Army of Iraq.
A undated family photo provided by Johnnie Mae Reuben Nov. 17, 2006 in Minneapolis shows Paul Reuben, who was among four Americans and an Austrian escorting a convoy that was hijacked Thursday, Nov. 16, 2006, in Iraq. Reuben, a former police officer, worked for a private security contractor in Iraq the last two years. (AP Photo/Courtesy Johnnie Mae Reuben) (AP)
Jonathon M. Cote, 23, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, was escorting a supply convoy when abducted.
Area veteran is hostage in Iraq
Family confirms he is among 5 missing
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