Two Americans, Briton kidnapped in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq – A team of kidnappers grabbed two Americans and a Briton in a dawn raid on their home on a leafy Baghdad street Thursday – a bold abduction that underlines the increasing danger for foreigners in the embattled capital as violence soars ahead of national elections planned for early next year.
West of the capital, U.S. forces launched attacks Thursday in the Sunni insurgent strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi, killing up to 60 insurgents in strikes against allies of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a military statement said. The military said that the “foreign fighters” were killed near Fallujah.
Dr. Ali Awad of the Fallujah General Hospital said 30 people were killed and more than 40 were injured, including women and children.
The military launched what it called a “precision strike” against a house in Fallujah and followed it with a second strike in a nearby town. The second strike destroyed three buildings allegedly used by Zarqawi’s network.
Also Thursday, three U.S. Marines assigned to 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed by hostile fire in separate incidents in the western Anbar province while conducting security operations, the military said. One Marine died at the scene and the two others died later of their wounds. No other details were released.
The U.S. Embassy identified the kidnapped Americans as Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, but the identity of the British man was not disclosed.
The three worked for Gulf Services Co., a United Arab Emirates-based construction company. “They were doing work under contracts with them in Baghdad,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
The abduction took place in the al-Mansour neighborhood, one of the most affluent in Baghdad. Foreign embassies and prominent Iraqi politicians are based in the neighborhood.
The team of about 10 attackers drove to the head of the tree-lined street in a minivan, walked up to the house, circumvented a concrete wall and snatched the Westerners without a gunfight, said Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman, an Interior Ministry official.
Nineteen-year-old Ziad Tareq said he was walking down the street when he saw a man dressed in black, his face covered with a red Arab headdress, dragging one of the Westerners by the collar and pushing him into a car parked outside the house.
U.S. troops fanned out across the street to investigate what happened and question witnesses – arriving hours after the gunmen had fled. The FBI was also investigating.
Early today, 40 miles north of Baghdad, police found the corpse of a man they believed to be a Westerner. The body was pulled from the Tigris River near the central Iraqi village of Yethrib, said Capt. Hakim al-Azawi, the head of security at Tikrit’s Teaching Hospital. The man, described as tall and well built with blonde hair, had been shot in the back of the head. His hands were cuffed behind his back.
Insurgents have turned to kidnappings and spectacular bombings as the weapon of choice to pressure the United States and its allies to pull out of Iraq and embarrass the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Even in the heavily guarded Green Zone – where the U.S. Embassy is located – foreigners were warned in the last 10 days to be on guard against possible kidnapping attempts, a U.S. official said.