Civilians Rethink Security In Iraq

Masked Iraqis draped in black and armed with automatic rifles and rocket launchers ambushed a convoy of vehicles outside a violence-gripped Iraqi city looking for one target: Western passengers.

"They offered us $10,000 for each American passenger, $5,000 for non-Americans and threatened to kill non-Iraqis," said Haitham Taher, 32, one of 12 Jordanian and Iraqi drivers who escaped Sunday's ambush unharmed in Garma, a village west of troubled Fallujah.

"But all our passengers were Iraqis and we pretended to be Iraqis, so they let us go," he said.

A new wave of kidnappings by Iraqi insurgents has seen 40 civilians from 12 countries taken hostage during the last week. The kidnappings and stepped up fighting between U.S. troops and armed Iraqis also have left noncombatants in Iraq rethinking their security.

Taher said his company has stopped sending Jordanians into Iraq, relying instead on its two Iraqi drivers to ferry journalists, aid workers and others.

The Jordanian government has taken similar measures. A shipment of humanitarian supplies to Fallujah last week was sent with 21 Iraqi trucks to avoid risking the lives of Jordanian drivers, said Mohammad al-Taleb, spokesman for the Jordanian Hashemite Charity Organization, which sent the supplies.

The flag carrier, Royal Jordanian, has varied the times and routes of its chartered flights to Baghdad's International Airport to avoid being target of ground-to-air fire, an airline official said on condition of anonymity.

The Foreign Office of Britain, the main U.S. ally in Iraq, advises against "all but the most essential travel" to Iraq, and suggests delaying even essential travel due to the recent flare-up of violence.

The Foreign Office said it did not know how many nonmilitary Britons were in Iraq; there are about 8,700 British troops in the country.

Britain's trade and investment office lists almost 50 British firms operating in Iraq — many in communications, engineering or security — but says the list is not exhaustive and it doesn't know how many personnel are working there.

British engineering services firm AMEC is the biggest non-U.S. contractor in Iraq. Spokesman Harold Ashurst said the company was "keeping a very close watch on the situation.

"Our people there don't move unless it's absolutely necessary," he said. He would not elaborate on the firm's security arrangements and would say only that it had just "a handful" of staff in Iraq.

Some have stopped working in Iraq altogether. Two Danish relief groups said they pulled their 25 workers out of Iraq. The workers included citizens from Sweden, Denmark, Britain, the Netherlands and Canada. Denmark, which backed the U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein, has 410 troops in Basra and nearby Qurnah, 250 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Germany and France, which spearheaded a campaign against the U.S.-led war on Iraq last year, urged their citizens to leave Iraq. Berlin's travel warning came Monday after two German security officials were ambushed and are presumed to be dead.

Eastern European nations like Romania, Hungary and Slovakia issued or renewed travel advisories to Iraq.

A Romanian citizen was shot dead and another was wounded during an attack on a convoy near Baghdad on Sunday. About 100 Romanian civilians are working in Iraq, in security jobs and for companies at the airport. Some Romanians may judge that the benefits of working in Iraq outweigh the risks. Security guards, for example, were making $800 a month plus insurance and other benefits in Iraq, while the average monthly salary in Romania is about $170.

A Hungarian working for a sanitation company providing services to coalition forces was shot dead by U.S. troops Nov. 17 after reportedly failing to stop his van at a check point. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry has issued repeated warnings to citizens not to travel to Iraq. "Prevention is the essence," said ministry spokesman Tamas Toth.

According to the Foreign Ministry, around 50 Hungarian civilians are working in Iraq, most for the sanitation company.

Kunihiko Miyake, a Japanese official coordinating rescue efforts from Amman for three Japanese among the hostages in Iraq, said there had been new security measures to protect Japanese diplomats and other citizens in Iraq. He refused to describe them, but said: "The security issue is one of our main concerns."

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said he wouldn't deal with terrorists and stressed that Japan's contingent of about 500 ground troops is on a humanitarian mission in Iraq. "We cannot give in to the cowardly threats of terrorists," he said.

Australia sounded equally defiant. Prime Minister John Howard said Australia must "go the distance" in Iraq even if its citizens are taken hostage. He also said there was no need to ask Australian civilians working in Iraq to leave. Australia has 2,000 military personnel and some 125 civilians in Iraq.