Posted on 05/29/2007 7:15:43 PM PDT by blam
SAS on alert to rescue Baghdad Britons
By Harry de Quetteville Damien McElroy and Nick Britten
Last Updated: 2:21am BST 30/05/2007
The SAS was on standby to mount a rescue mission in Baghdad last night after five Britons were kidnapped in Baghdad in a raid by suspected Shia militants.
Iraqi police security check motorists close to the finance ministry's information section in Baghdad
Dozens of gunmen and vehicles apparently belonging to a paramilitary unit of the Iraqi interior ministry took part in an operation to snatch hostages from a government building in the heart of the Iraqi capital.
The exact number of those kidnapped was still unclear last night, with witnesses reporting that up to seven people were taken.
The Foreign Office confirmed that five Britons - a computer expert and four security contractors - were among those seized.
A spokesman said: "Officials from our embassy are in urgent contact with the Iraqi authorities to try to establish the facts and to secure a swift resolution."
The uniformed raiders walked into the finance ministry building, just before midday. One man in a police major's uniform shouted: "Where are the foreigners?'' before the hostages were bundled into cars and driven off.
In Whitehall, the emergency response committee, Cobra, was meeting last night to co-ordinate efforts to bring about the release of the five men.
British officials said a crisis team had been assembled with police hostage negotiators, MI6 officials and Arabic linguists preparing to fly out to Baghdad.
On the ground the crisis team will liaise with the SAS. Norman Kember, the 76-year-old Christian peace activist, was freed in an SAS operation in Baghdad last year. The elite Special Forces regiment maintains a rapid reaction unit in Baghdad on permanent high alert for any reports of British kidnapping. Four of the five Britons, who have yet to be named, were private security contractors for the Canadian firm, GardaWorld.
They were protecting a computer consultant, who was working for the US-based consultancy BearingPoint and was at the ministry to give a presentation. The raid marked the first time that Westerners have been snatched from a government building.
The scale and degree of organisation of the raid suggested that renegade interior ministry personnel were involved. The ministry, which is dominated by Shia Muslims, has repeatedly been accused of harbouring death squads. Suspicion also fell on dissident members of the Madhi army, the Shia militia loyal to the firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
GardaWorld provides personal protection services from a compound in Baghdad's Green Zone. More than 200 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. Almost a third have been executed by their captors, including the British contractor Ken Bigley and the humanitarian worker Margaret Hassan.
I hear they’ve called in Jimmy Carter to plan the operation...
“Jorge” and Phony Blair, you will ultimately read of your failure to prosecute this war without remorse, and with extreme prejudice.
I love America, and I mourn for the brave men and women who have perished in Iraq.
I raise the flag in honor of fallen brethren and a middle finger to all others.
Good luck Brits!
This account has been banned or suspended.
That’s odd. I just thought of jmc1969 too and see he too was banned.
Did he piss off the Terribots? lol
“a raid by suspected Shia militants.”
good chance IMO that they were actual cops.....I’d love to know the exact nature of the negotiations in or re the Finance Ministry that were taking place, then I would hazard an admittedly irrelevant guess as to whether these cops are sunni or shia
SAS Bump!
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