4 Americans Abducted In Deadly Iraq Hijack

An Austrian was killed and four U.S. citizens were abducted after their convoy of security contractors was hijacked in southern Iraq. One of the Americans -- who was seriously wounded -- was later released, an Iraqi official said.

The body of the Austrian hostage was brought to a morgue in the city of Basra at 2:30 p.m. Friday, and the wounded American captive was taken there so he could be transferred to a British military hospital, the Basra officer said on condition of anonymity out of concern for his own security.

The whereabouts of three other abudcted Americans remained unknown.

British ground forces and U.S. military helicopters fought with gunmen Friday in the area where abducted in a convoy hijacking. It was not known whether the gunmen were involved in the kidnapping, said Capt. Tane Dunlop, a spokesman for British forces. He said two of the gunmen were killed.

In Vienna, Astrid Harz, a spokeswoman for the Austrian foreign ministry, confirmed that a 25-year-old Austrian male from Upper Austria had been kidnapped when the Crescent Security Group convoy was hijacked in southern Iraq on Thursday. However, she could not confirm that he had been killed.

U.S. officials could not immediately be contacted about the report that the American had been wounded.

A total of five Crescent Security Group workers — an Austrian and four Americans — were taken hostage from the convoy, but nine other civilian employees from Asian countries such as India, Pakistan and the Philippines were released by the captors, the company said.

An Iraqi official, who declined to be named for personal reasons, refused to say how many vehicles were in the convoy, who hijacked it and how the freed captives were released, explaining that he didn't want to jeopardize the work of U.S. and British forces.

A U.S. Embassy official, who refused to be identified because he was not authorized to release the information, said the convoy included 43 heavy trucks and six security vehicles. Some of the hijackers were dressed as Iraqi police and those men took away 20 vehicles, he said.

Dunlop said in a telephone interview from Basra that the hijacking occurred Thursday at 1 p.m. in Safwan, an Iraqi city near the Kuwait border. He said the convoy was coming from Kuwait.

At dawn Friday, British ground forces and helicopters searched an area of Safwan for gunmen who had attacked coalition forces in the past few days when about 10 of them opened fire from farm buildings, Dunlop said. The British and U.S. forces returned fire, killing two of the gunmen, Dunlop said.

An Iraqi police officer confirmed the fighting and gave higher casualty figures, saying five of the gunmen and one British soldier also had been wounded. But Dunlop could not immediately confirm that. The Iraqi officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

The officer said the Crescent Security Group convoy had been stopped at a checkpoint on Thursday by Iraqi men, some of them wearing police uniforms.

The Crescent Security Group company works mostly in Iraq, and its operations are based in Kuwait. Many of its managers and employees are American.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Thursday that preliminary reports suggested the attacked convoy included about 19 vehicles.

A State Department official informed the family of Paul Reuben, 39, a former Minneapolis police officer who was working as a security contractor in Iraq, that he was among those captured, his brother, Patrick Reuben, told the Star Tribune newspaper and KSTP-TV in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Italy formally handed over security responsibility of the southern Dhi Qar Province to Iraqi forces in late September, and British troops handed over control of the adjacent southern Muthana province in July.

In other developments: