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Gunmen seize American, 3 others in Iraq Two Iraqi guards abducted along with an American and Nepalese by armed gunmen from their Baghdad compound have been released, police said Tuesday. The kidnappers allowed two of four Iraqi guards kidnapped to go free and left them in Baghdad's Hay al-Amil area late Monday, said a police officer involved with the investigation on condition of anonymity.
"Don't work with them again or else we'll kill you," the kidnappers told the two men, according to the police officer. He said he believed the two were freed because they were from the Fallujah area. On Monday, assailants had stormed the compound of a Saudi company in the upscale Mansour district of western Baghdad and seized six hostages during a gunbattle. One guard and one assailant was killed during the shootout, police said. The U.S. Embassy confirmed that an American was abducted but have not identified him. The offices where the hostages were abducted is about 500 yards from the home of two Americans and a Briton kidnapped by militants in September. All three were later killed. The abductees are believed to work for the Saudi Arabian Trading and Construction Company, or Satco. The company caters food and provides food supplies to the Iraqi army and others, a company official said from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Neighbors in the area described seeing several cars filled with gunmen, some blocking the road to the house. "We heard gunfire. I went outside to see what's going on when a man pointed a machine gun at me and said: 'Get in or else, I'll shoot at you,'" said Haidar Karar, who lives in the neighborhood. From his house, Karar saw "at least 20 attackers, some masked and some not." He said some were wearing traditional Arab robes and all were carrying automatic weapons. Twelve Americans have been kidnapped or are missing in Iraq. At least three of them have been killed ¡ª all beheaded in abductions claimed by an al-Qaida-linked group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. More than 160 foreigners have been abducted this year by militants with political demands or by criminals seeking ransom. At least 33 captives have been killed. The abduction came two days after authorities found the decapitated body of another hostage, 24-year-old Japanese backpacker Shosei Koda. Al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq group said it had kidnapped Koda and demanded a withdrawal of Japanese troops from the country. Koda's body was found Saturday, wrapped in an American flag and dumped on a Baghdad street. On Tuesday, a car bomb exploded in the busy commercial district of Azamiyah in northern Baghdad, causing casualties, the Interior Ministry said. Spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman did not have specifics on how many were killed or injured. The blast detonated near the Ministry of Education offices, according to a ministry employee, who refused to give his name. Most of the employees managed to escape unscathed but the building's guards, who were in the rear of the building, were among the casualties, he said.
The latest violence occurred as American troops are gearing up for a major offensive against Fallujah, the strongest bastion of Sunni insurgents and located about 40 miles west of the capital. The order to launch the assault must come from Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi who warned Sunday that his patience with negotiations was thinning. However, Allawi, a Shiite Muslim, faces strong opposition to such an attack within the Sunni minority. In an interview published Monday by the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas, interim President Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni, said he disagreed "with those who believe a military attack is necessary." "The way the coalition is managing the crisis is wrong," al-Yawer said. "It is as if someone shot his horse in the head to kill a fly that landed on it. The fly flies away and the horse dies." Allawi has given no deadline for an attack on Fallujah. The city fell under
insurgent control after the Bush administration ordered Marines to call off
their attack against the city in April following a public outcry over reports of
hundreds of civilian casualties. |
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