Status Of Abducted Americans A Mystery
Search Continues In Iraq After Conflicting Reports Swirl Over Safety Of Four Americans And An Austrian
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Play CBS Video Video Search For Contractors Goes On A group of private contractors were kidnapped as their convoy headed into Iraq. An Iraqi official says there has been a ransom demand for the four Americans and one Austrian. Elizabeth Palmer reports.
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Video "Shadow Army" In Iraq Tens of thousands of civilians deployed in Iraq provide logistical support for the troops, but face grave danger as they transport supplies around the country. Armen Keteyian has more details.
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Video Brazen Kidnapping In Baghdad Dozens of people were kidnapped at an Iraqi Education Ministry building. As Elizabeth Palmer reports, the kidnappings raise new questions about the government's commitment to reining in militias.
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In this undated photo released by the St. Louis Park Police Dept., former St. Louis Park police officer Paul Reuben is shown. Reuben, 39, was among four American security contractors and an Austrian co-worker escorting a convoy that was hijacked, his brother, Patrick Reuben, told KSTP-TV and the Star Tribune. (AP Photo/St. Louis Park Police)
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British soldiers patrol in Zubair, near Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, on Nov. 17, 2006. British and U.S. troops were searching for four abducted Americans whose convoy was hijacked Thursday in Safwan, an Iraqi city near the Kuwaiti border. (AP Photo)
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An Iraqi firefighter, left, arrives at the scene following an explosion in Baghdad on Nov. 16, 2006. (AP Photo)
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Interactive Held Hostage Details on foreign workers and soldiers captured by insurgents in Iraq.
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Interactive Battle For Iraq The government, the insurgency, key players, background and photos.
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Who's Who Iraq Insurgency More on the militant groups behind the insurgency in Iraq and their motivations.
Gunmen wearing police uniforms abducted the security team near Safwan, a largely Sunni Arab city of 200,000 people in southern Iraq. The attack took place shortly after the Westerners had crossed the Kuwaiti border with a large convoy of supply trucks.
The convoy was traveling on the Iraq Military Road, which is infrequently used by civilian vehicles. Sunni insurgents attack supply convoys on a daily basis, not only on the roads from Kuwait but also from Turkey in the north and Jordan in the west.
Convoys are heavily armed, but not heavily enough. They can be several dozen vehicles long and are often attacked in the middle, their weakest point, reports CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer.
Basra police Maj. Gen. Ali al-Moussawi refused to give details of the ransom demand late Friday after a series of confused and apparently incorrect reports that variously claimed the Austrian had been found dead and one of the Americans was gravely wounded. Another discounted report came from the Basra governor, who had said two Americans were freed and one hostage killed.
Al-Moussawi said police believed the five employees of the Crescent Security Co. were being held in the Safwan region along with trucks from the convoy.
Throughout the day, U.S. officials and the British military, which still has about 7,000 troops in the Basra region, said they had no information on the kidnapped men.Click here to read Armen Keteyian’s report on civilian contractors deployed in Iraq.
The confusion in reports from Iraqi officials apparently grew out of their having been unaware initially of a fresh incident on Friday involving a British security team that had been stopped by Iraqi customs police on the same road where the Crescent Security team was abducted.
In other developments:
Al-Moussawi said that as police checked the papers of the British security men in the lead vehicle, a car drove by at high speed and opened fire, killing one Briton and wounding a second in the car. British officials in Basra confirmed an incident involving security men but would provide no details.
The police major general speculated that Basra Gov. Mohammed al-Waili was not aware of that incident and had assumed the dead and wounded were from the group of five kidnapped the day before.
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 111 CommentsIf I was Canadian, I would be more concerned with extracting my fellow country men and women from the U.S./NAITO defeat in Afghanistan.
The Canadians should not be legitimizing that effort.
You are welcome.
Yes I can, and there is no indication that 'we' have any intention of ever leaving. U.S. "contrators" are building the largest embassy building ever constructed, and contunue to develop several PERMANENT U.S. military bases throughout Iraq.
The U.S. military will leave Iraq when they are finally thrown out, or when enough of our bravest soldiers refuse to participate in the horrific, disgraceful, and illegal war against Iraq; whichever comes first.
GOOD-NIGHT.....AM GOING TO AL-JAZEERA, BROADCASTING......
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