Stryker Brigade soldier killed
A 27-year-old Army sergeant assigned to the Stryker Brigade Combat Team based at Fort Lewis, Wash., has died in Iraq, the Defense Department said Friday.
Sgt. Stephen R. Sherman of Neptune, N.J., died Thursday in Mosul after an explosive detonated near his vehicle.
He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division at Fort Lewis.
Daughter of hostage pleads for his release
Memphis, Tenn. The daughter of a contractor being held hostage in Iraq pleaded for his release and said she wants his captors to see a photo of his 7-year-old granddaughter so they understand he has a family that wants him home.
“If they can find peace in their heart, his family needs him,” Amanda Hallums told the Commercial Appeal on Thursday. “Please release him.”
Roy Hallums and another man were taken from their office in Baghdad on Nov. 1. In a video that aired Jan. 25, he was shown pleading for his life with a rifle pointed at his head.
Amanda Hallums, a 25-year-old cosmetologist and single mother, said the FBI earlier advised her not to talk to the media. She decided to go public with her plea and let the newspaper run a photograph of her and her daughter, Sabrina, after talking with a former hostage.
Three French Muslims detained in Iraq
Paris Three French citizens who joined the rebel insurgency in Iraq have been held by coalition forces since being captured there last year, officials said Friday.
The report comes amid a broadening investigation in France into networks sending young French Muslims to Iraq to fight against U.S.-led forces.
Last week, French intelligence agents arrested two volunteers preparing to leave for Iraq and the man suspected of organizing the network, effectively dismantling the operation, police have said.
Three other French militants who went to Iraq through the same Paris-based network have died there.
The trio of French Muslims were detained for involvement with rebels in the Iraqi city of Fallujah and for attempted armed robbery of a government car carrying money, said Danny Hussein Ali, a secretary of the Iraqi human rights minister.
The French daily Le Figaro reported that at least two of the three were brought to Iraq by a Paris-based network, now broken up, that had recruited Muslims in France to fight against the U.S.-led forces in Iraq.
Ali said the three – Faras Ibrahim Howeidi, Chekou Diakhabi and Peter Cherif – were in the custody of multinational forces, and the French Embassy was aware of their detention.