World

2 GIs, 7 U.S. Contractors Missing

April 12, 2004 / 3:39 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Two U.S. troops and several civilians working for a U.S. company are missing in Iraq, a top general said Monday, amid uncertainty the fate of at least one American captured by militants.

The troops and civilians were missing following an attack "two days ago" on a convoy near Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said Monday. He refused to say whether they had been abducted.

An American, Thomas Hamill, 43, a truck driver for a U.S. contractor in Iraq, was snatched Friday by gunmen who attacked a fuel convoy. His captors threatened to kill him unless U.S. troops ended their assault on the city of Fallujah. The deadline passed Sunday morning with no word on his fate.

It was unclear if Hamill was among the seven contractors Sanchez mentioned. He worked for the company Kellogg, Brown & Root. The seven civilians Sanchez mentioned worked for the same firm.

More than 30 foreigners from at least 12 countries have been kidnapped in recent days by insurgents.

Militants on Monday released at least nine hostages, a spokesman for Islamic clerics who appealed for the releases said. One group included two Turks, three Pakistanis, a Nepalese, a Filipino and an Indian. Other captives were released earlier.

But Muthanna Harith said he had no word on three Japanese civilians still being held. Also, Beijing appealed for the rescue of seven Chinese workers seized in Iraq.

In other developments:

Gunmen battered American supply lines Monday, torching armored vehicles and looting a supply truck on its way from the Baghdad airport.

The military said about 70 Americans and 700 insurgents had been killed this month, the bloodiest since the fall of Baghdad a year ago.

A tenuous cease-fire in the Iraqi city of Fallujah appears to be holding, though American forces are not yet ready to negotiate with insurgents inside the city, top U.S. generals said Monday.

Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq, also said some troops from the Army's 1st Armored Division will stay in Iraq for longer than anticipated.

A radical Shiite cleric has pulled his militiamen out of police stations and government facilities in three cities they took control of this week, partially meeting a U.S. demand for ending the standoff in southern Iraq, the cleric's representative said Monday. Police on Monday were back on the streets and in their stations in Najaf, Kufa and Karbala for the first time in days since the al-Mahdi Army militia of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took control of the facilities last week, witnesses said.

U.S. commanders admitted that some Iraqi police and security forces had refused to fight and a few even joined al-Sadr's militia in southern Iraq. "That was a disappointment to us," Abizaid said.

A U.S. soldier was killed and four others wounded when their patrol was attacked on Sunday near the city of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, a statement said. At least 665 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

The military has been trying to regain control of supply routes after several convoys were ambushed.

On Monday, a convoy of flatbed trucks carrying M113 armored personnel carriers was attacked and burned on a road in Latifiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad. Witnesses said three people were killed.

A supply truck was also ambushed and set ablaze Monday on the road from Baghdad's airport. Looters moved in to carry away goods from the truck as Iraqi police looked on without intervening.

An attack on a convoy Sunday killed a Romanian working for a security company, Romania's ambassador to Iraq said. Two German security guards were killed on a highway last week, prompting Germany to urge all of its citizens to leave Iraq on Monday.

Securing roads has now become a top priority for the military, U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Monday.

"Over the past 24 hours we have put significant amount of combat power on both areas of operation to open up those lines of communication so we can not only resupply our forces in Fallujah, Ramadi and our forces down south, but also make those roads safe for travel," Kimmit said.

"They're at a condition that we would call amber; it is certainly not green yet," he said.

In Fallujah, where U.S. Marines are surrounding the unstable city, no major attacks from insurgents happened during daylight hours Monday, Sanchez said.

At the request of the Iraqi Governing Council, Marines held discussions with some of the insurgent forces inside Fallujah and began a unilateral cease-fire, Sanchez said. The Marines continue to return fire when attacked and do not consider the cease-fire strong enough to begin actual negotiations with anyone inside Fallujah, he said.

"These are just initial discussions. We are not negotiating at this point until we achieve some confidence-building and some stability," Sanchez said.

President Bush held out hope for the Fallujah talks, saying the United States was "open to suggestions" on reducing the violence.

Iraqi Governing Council members, who have harshly criticized the U.S. offensive, are seeking a way to extend the truce and resolve the violence.

The Iraqi national security adviser called on Fallujah's population to hand over insurgents who killed and mutilated four American civilians on March 31 as a way to halt the Marines' siege of the city.

"I am calling on Fallujah's good people … to hand over these criminals and finish the bloodshed," said Mouwafak al-Rubaie.

About 600 Iraqi dead, mostly civilians, were recorded by the main hospital and four clinics in Fallujah, hospital director Rafie al-Issawi told The Associated Press.

In all, about 880 Iraqis have been killed, according to an AP count, based on statements by Iraqi hospital officials, U.S. military statements and Iraqi police.

Marines on Sunday investigated a bomb-making factory first uncovered three days earlier. Along with five suicide belts found in the initial raid, they uncovered U.S. military uniforms — suggesting suicide bombers may try to get close to American forces, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne said.