American Captive Traveled World

(CBS/AP)  Businessman Jeffrey Ake routinely urged entrepreneurs to travel to other countries to pitch their products, once telling a group to think of foreign nations as "U.S. states with cultural nuances thrown in."

But Ake's frequent travels also made him a possible target. He is believed to have been kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents during his second business trip to Iraq in two years.

Ake, 47, was snatched Monday from a water treatment plant near Baghdad, according to officials at the American Embassy.

A videotape aired Wednesday by Al-Jazeera television showed Ake being held at gunpoint by at least three assailants as the Indiana man clutched what appeared to be a photo and a passport. In the video, Al-Jazeera said, Ake asked the U.S. government to withdraw from Iraq and save his life.

No group claimed responsibility for the abduction.

Ake built his business in Indiana, but he traveled the world to take his innovations for bottling drinking water and cooking oil to the people and places that needed them most, reports CBS News Correspondent Cynthia Bowers.

The father of four was in Iraq to help with postwar reconstruction by installing water bottling equipment.

"It's not only devastating, it's also very sad to see an innocent individual going over there and trying to help a country," said David Christian, another businessman in the community about 25 miles west of South Bend. "Having terrorist acts taken against people like that is just unthinkable."

Friends say he is the antithesis of the proverbial ugly American, reports Bowers.

"Jeff is a very bright young man, a wonderful family man," said LaPorte Mayor Leigh Morris on CBS News' The Early Show. "Jeff's not a wealthy person at all but he's been a very successful businessman, and at the same time, quite a humanitarian."

"If you can imagine, he probably could have done many other things rather than being in Iraq to try to help the Iraqi people," said Morris.

At Ake's ranch-style home in northern Indiana, an American flag fluttered on a pole Wednesday and a yellow ribbon was tied around a tree. By Wednesday night, the house was darkened and no one appeared to be home.

Ake's family and the company he runs, Equipment Express, made no immediate public remarks about reports of his kidnapping.

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