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IRAQ WRAPUP 2-U.S. contractor kidnapped in Iraq
11 Apr 2005 22:15:34 GMT
Source: Reuters
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(Adds attacks in Mosul, Samarra) By Michael Georgy BAGHDAD, April 11 (Reuters) - An American contractor was kidnapped near Baghdad on Monday, the U.S. embassy said, raising fresh concerns about security in Iraq where more than 150 foreigners have been abducted by guerrillas over the past year. "No group has claimed responsibility. We have contacted the Iraqi authorities to try and find him," said embassy spokesman Bob Callaghan, adding the contractor was working on a reconstruction project. No other details were available. Militants began using kidnappings of foreigners about a year ago in their campaign to drive out U.S.-led foreign troops. Some captives have been freed but about a third have been killed, a number by beheading. Criminals have seized people for ransoms. Two suicide car bomb attacks were mounted at the entrance to a U.S. military camp in the western Iraqi town of Qaim, close to the border with Syria, witnesses said. U.S. forces in the area were not immediately available for comment, but an official at the hospital in Qaim said two civilians were killed and three were wounded. The first car rammed into a checkpoint outside the camp and detonated before reaching the gate, the witnesses said. U.S. and Iraqi troops were rushing to help the wounded when a second car bomber raced up and blew up his vehicle, they said. The witnesses, speaking to Reuters staff in Ramadi, about 300 km (180 miles) east of Qaim, said three U.S. helicopters arrived at the scene to evacuate casualties. In the northern city of Mosul, an Iraqi lieutenant working with the Americans in an explosives disposal unit was assassinated on his way to work, the U.S. military said. A car bomb that targeted U.S. troops killed two Iraqis and wounded six others in the northern town of Samarra, police said. PAKISTANI OFFICIAL "SAFE" The kidnapping of the U.S. contractor occurred one day after an official at the Pakistani embassy was reported abducted. Pakistan said on Monday Malik Mohammad Javed was probably being held for a ransom. "Mr Javed is absolutely safe," Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani told a news conference. "He is regularly in contact with our charges d'affaires. His last contact ... took place last night." Political wrangling has delayed the formation of a government since Iraq's first post-Saddam Hussein era elections on Jan. 30, prompting fears guerrillas will view the country's new leaders as indecisive and step up attacks and kidnappings. Violence has eased since the polls but there are no signs of it ending. Two Americans, businessman Nick Berg and contractor Eugene Armstrong, were abducted and beheaded last year by a group belonging to al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Three journalists from staunch U.S. ally Romania and their translator were kidnapped in Baghdad last month. French journalist Florence Aubenas and her driver were taken hostage after leaving their Baghdad hotel in January. Many Iraqis want U.S. forces to leave Iraq but fear Iraqi security forces are not capable of ending the violence. The Pentagon is limiting U.S. troop deployments to Iraq and other combat zones to 12 months, with a new memorandum saying U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must approve any major extensions. "It's not a big policy change. It's just a clarification of who will be eligible and ... that only the secretary of defense can extend a unit or individual beyond 365 days," said Lieutenant Colonel Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman. Thousands of U.S. soldiers were required to serve beyond the 12-month limit to provide additional security in the run-up to Iraq's Jan. 30 elections. The new government is slowly taking shape. Ibrahim Jaafari from Iraq's Shi'ite majority was named as the new prime minister last week, and Kurdish former guerrilla Jalal Talabani was made president. The cabinet line-up has yet to be formalised.
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