GI Killed; 2 Others Are Missing
Two U.S. troops and seven contractors are missing following an attack on a convoy west of Baghdad, a U.S. commander said, amid a wave of abductions of foreigners in Iraq.
from at least 12 countries - including a Mississippi man whose fate is not yet known - have been reported missing, and in many cases, kidnapped, by rebels in Iraq.Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said Monday that two American soldiers and seven employees of U.S. contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root are missing from a convoy which was ambushed Friday near Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad. He refused to say whether they had been abducted.
The Pentagon late Monday identified the GIs from the convoy as Sgt. Elmer C. Krause, 40, of Greensboro, N.C., and Pfc. Keith M. Maupin, 20, of Batavia, Ohio. Both are now listed as "wherabouts unknown."
American Thomas Hamill, 43, a truck driver, was seized 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 with no word on his fate.
Hamill's family watched in horror as video of Hamill hit the airwaves.
"They've been showing him on the TV, and they don't think he's an American," said Vera Hamill, his grandmother. "I just wish somebody would tell them he is an American."
"I got God, and I just trust in God," added Hamill.
Kellogg, Brown and Root is a division of Halliburton.
"Halliburton's primary concern is for the safety and security of all personnel, especially those working in such challenging environments and conditions," the company said in a statement issued Saturday. "We are monitoring the current situation in Iraq and continue to work closely with coalition authorities regarding the safety and security of all our personnel in the region."
Seven Chinese men abducted by gunmen in the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, were freed late Monday after a day in captivity, the Chinese government said. A brief Foreign Ministry statement from Beijing said the men were released to an Iraqi religious group who passed them on to diplomats. "Their health and spirits are good," the statement said.
Many of the reports of kidnappings have been surrounded by confusion and have not been officially confirmed.
Early Tuesday, Russia's Foreign Ministry said that eight employees of a Russian company have been kidnapped, the Interfax news agency reported.
"I confirm the fact of the abduction in Baghdad of eight of employees of the Interenergoservis company," Yakovenko was quoted as saying.
The report, citing an unnamed ministry official, came hours after the Arab television channel al-Jazeera reported that 11 Russians had been seized during a clash in Baghdad. Al-Jazeera said two Iraqi security guards working for the Russians "may have been" killed during a gunfight with the kidnappers.
Also Monday, a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council said at least 12 foreign hostages have been released. Mohsen Abdul-Hamid did not identify the nationalities of the released hostages or where they were.
However, a member of his office reached later said the number of those released is unclear.
Earlier, Muthanna Harith, spokesman for Islamic Clerics Committee, announced the release by rebels of nine hostages of various nationalities, including Turks and Pakistanis. It was not clear if he and Abdul-Hamid are referring to the same hostages, or if the Chinese mentioned in the Xinhua report are included in that number.
The nine are truck drivers for military supply convoys, which have come under heavy attack in recent days by gunmen on the western and southern outskirts of Baghdad.
Eight of the nine freed hostages appeared in a video broadcast Sunday on Al-Jazeera. The eight included two Turks, three Pakistanis, a Nepalese, a Filipino and an Indian. The identity of the ninth hostage was not immediately known.
The seven Chinese had entered Iraq from Jordan on Saturday and were captured the next day, China's Foreign Ministry said.
China hasn't contributed troops to the U.S.-led military force in Iraq and it was unclear why the seven were there. The official Xinhua News Agency described them as villagers who went to the Middle East on their own from a Chinese region with a tradition of sending migrants abroad to work. State television said they didn't work for China's government or a state company.
In other recent developments:
The Bush administration, says Falk, has contacted the French government, asking it to play a role in an international protection force for U.N. staff in Iraq and although France, like the U.S., is waiting to hear the Brahimi verdict, that request could be a door to a multinational approach to Iraq.
Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq, says some troops from the Army's 1st Armored Division will stay in Iraq for longer than anticipated.
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.
The American truck driver who is being held hostage - Thomas Hamill - was seized 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 with no word on his fate.
, Macon, Miss., tell CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann that Hamill took the truck driving job to get out of debt. He had been back in Macon last month for his wife's heart surgery."He was just trying to help his family out," said Macon resident Danny Swanson.
In Tokyo, optimism faded Monday that the Japanese hostages will be released quickly after a top government spokesman suggested authorities are no longer confident of their safety.
Japanese aid workers Noriaki Imai, 18, and Nahoko Takato, 34, and photojournalist Soichiro Koriyama, 32, were taken hostage in southern Iraq, but the exact date of their capture is not known. Their captors threatened them with knives in a videotape and have vowed to burn them alive if Japan does not withdraw its troops.
Vice President Dick Cheney, in Tokyo on a weeklong Asia tour, promised Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi the United States would "do everything we can to be of assistance."
The Japanese hostages - two aid workers and a photojournalist - are apparently being held by a previously unknown group calling itself the "Mujahedeen Brigades," which is demanding that Japan pull its troops out of Iraq within three days or it would burn them alive.
The kidnappers' deadline came and went with no word on their fate.
Koizumi has staunchly refused to consider the withdrawal, a position lauded by Cheney. "We wholeheartedly support the position the prime minister has taken with respect to the question of the Japanese hostages," Cheney told reporters Monday.
Militants on Wednesday kidnapped two aid workers in Najaf: Fadi Ihsan Fadel, a Syrian-born Canadian who works for the International Rescue Committee, and Nabil Razouk, 30, an Arab from East Jerusalem who works for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Fadel's brother is telling kidnappers they've made a mistake. Speaking in Montreal Monday, Ghayas Fadel said Arab television reports calling his brother an Israeli agent are wrong. "He's a Syrian-born Canadian working in Iraq for the humanitarian effort to help kids in Iraq and develop programs for them and he is a peaceful man," said Fadel.
Seven South Korean missionaries were held briefly before being released Thursday. An eighth person escaped.