Free Republic

The German weekly Der Spiegel reported Saturday that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert plans to declare the two soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah, Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser, dead. Olmert was in Germany last week, and the Germans are the chief mediators between Israel and Hezbollah on this issue. The likelihood that they are dead increases with every day that goes by with no sign of life from them. Israeli security sources confirmed last night that the intelligence community is reassessing the kidnapped soldiers' situation and is likely to make "difficult decisions" on the matter in the coming weeks. But Israel is...

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...