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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (70853)	9/16/2004 9:57:40 AM
From: MulhollandDrive	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794001

very sorry to see this.. unclewest, doesn't it make sense that contractors working in iraq get subcutaneous gps tracking? story.news.yahoo.com Americans, 1 Briton Kidnapped in Iraq By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer 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 (news - web sites). 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.