Citizens of nearly two dozen countries have been kidnapped or reported missing in Iraq over the past ten days, with at least one killed but many more quickly freed. Here is a rough guide to the hostage situation as of midday Friday:
U.S.: One kidnapped, eight others missing. Most prominent is Thomas Hamill of Macon, Miss., a civilian contractor for the American company Kellogg, Brown & Root, who was shown on television being bundled into a Mercedes sedan by masked gunmen.
A businessman kidnapped from his Basra hotel Thursday night, initially identified as an American of Arab origin, was later said to be a citizen of the United Arab Emirates, not the United States.
Along with Hamill, six other Kellogg, Brown & Root employees, as well as two soldiers, went missing after the ambush of a fuel convoy traveling between Baghdad and Fallujah.
The U.S. military on Tuesday identified the missing soldiers as Sgt. Elmer C. Krause, 40, of Greensboro, N.C., and Pfc. Keith M. Maupin, 20, of Batavia, Ohio. Both were assigned to the Army Reserves 724th Transportation Company, Bartonville, Ill.
Four bodies were found either Tuesday or Wednesday in a shallow grave near the location where the fuel convoy was attacked between Baghdad and Fallujah. Military sources told Fox News one of the bodies was that of an American soldier.
DENMARK: The Danish Foreign Ministry announced Friday that a businessman had been kidnapped. A Danish TV network said he had been working on a sewage project and was traveling from Basra to Baghdad when he was taken captive.
Denmark has 410 soldiers and some policemen in and around Basra.
CANADA: A Syrian-born naturalized Canadian, kidnapped last week along with an Arab resident of East Jerusalem, was freed Friday and delivered to the Najaf offices of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, according to witnesses.
Fadi Ihsan Fadel, an aid worker, told a Reuters reporter after his release that his captors moved him every few hours and accused him of being a Jew.
Fadel was kidnapped along with Nabil George Razouq on April 7 in Najaf. Earlier reports mistook Fadel for a second Arab from East Jerusalem.
CZECH REPUBLIC: The Czech Foreign Ministry said Friday that three broadcast journalists kidnapped Sunday had been released.
“We all are in good condition,” reporter Vit Pohanka told Czech Radio from the Czech Embassy in Baghdad, speaking along with Czech Television reporter Michal Kubal and cameraman Petr Klima.
After being held in an unknown location northwest of Baghdad, the Czechs were brought to the outskirts of the city Friday, and they took a taxi to the Czech Embassy, Pohanka said.
Czech TV earlier in the week broadcast an interview with a taxi driver who said the three were kidnapped while riding in his cab.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: A businessman was kidnapped from his Basra hotel Thursday night by abductors posing as Iraqi policemen, the police chief of Basra said Friday.
JAPAN: The three hostages kidnapped last week were freed Thursday, the Japanese foreign ministry confirmed.
Meanwhile, two more Japanese were reported kidnapped in Baghdad.
The trio — an a aid worker, a weapons researcher and a photojournalist — were abducted last Wednesday by a previously unknown group calling itself the Holy Warriors Brigades, which had threatened to burn them alive unless Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi withdrew Japanese troops from southern Iraq.
Koizumi refused, despite domestic public pressure to negotiate.
The newly kidnapped pair, a freelance journalist and an aid worker, were kidnapped Wednesday after being lured to the site of an emergency helicopter landing, the Japan Visual Journalist Association. The Japanese foreign minister could not confirm the report.
ITALY: One of four men kidnapped earlier this week was executed by his Iraqi captors, the Italian government confirmed Thursday.
The Arabic-language satellite television channel Al Jazeera, which had aired the first video from the four Italians’ captors, announced late Wednesday it had received a second videotape showing one of the men being killed.
Al Jazeera refused to air the video, saying it was too graphic, but an Italian diplomat who watched it privately confirmed the hostage’s death.
The four men, said to be working as security guards for the American company DTS Security, were confirmed missing Tuesday after the first videotape aired. A spokesman for DTS Security said the company had no personnel in Iraq.
A message with the second tape said the Italian was killed because Premier Silvio Berlusconi had ruled out withdrawing Italy’s 3,000 troops and paramilitary police from southern Iraq.
The first video came from a group calling itself the Green Brigade of the Prophet, apparently linked to the Holy Warriors Brigades that seized the three Japanese hostages, showing the four Italians holding their passports surrounded by armed men.
A message with the first video demanded that the Italian government, and specifically Berlusconi, issue an apology for Italy’s insult to Islam and Muslims and withdraw Italy’s forces.
An Italian official said Wednesday that an Iranian delegation was traveling to Iraq to try to negotiate the Italian hostages’ release.
FRANCE: A television journalist was freed Wednesday after having been kidnapped Sunday. A cameraman who had been traveling with him, but abducted separately on Sunday, was freed by a different group Monday.
Correspondent Alexandre Jordanov was freed Wednesday after negotiations with Sunni religious authorities, according to Capa Television, his employer. Jordanov said he was moved eight times over four days and passed from one armed group to another.
Cameraman Ivan Ceriex was let go Monday after he convinced his Sunni captors he was French.
France led the opposition in the U.N. Security Council to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and most of the few dozen French citizens in the country are journalists.
ISRAEL: An Arab Christian resident of East Jerusalem, an employee of a U.S. reconstruction company, was kidnapped last Wednesday in Najaf by a group that accused him of working for the U.S. and Israeli governments.
It was unclear whether he was an Israeli citizen — Arab residents of Jerusalem are entitled to Israeli nationality, but are not required to take it — and both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority were said to be working toward his release.
Israel has not taken a stance on the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
RUSSIA: Three workers for the Russian oil company Interenergoservis were kidnapped Monday from their Baghdad residence and freed a day later. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said that no one had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
Russia had close financial and diplomatic ties to the regime of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein and officially opposed the U.S.-led invasion.
In Moscow, the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations said it would begin evacuating hundreds of workers from Russia and other former Soviet republics on Thursday.
UKRAINE: Five Interenergoservis workers, kidnapped Monday along with the Russians from their Baghdad residence and freed a day later.
Ukraine has 1,600 troops helping keep security in southern Iraq.
CHINA: A Chinese man was released Friday, two days after being kidnapped, according to a leading Sunni clerical organization. The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no comment.
Seven other men had been abducted near Fallujah and freed Monday. China’s official Xinhua News Agency described them as migrant workers who went to the Middle East on their own.
China officially opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
SOUTH KOREA: Eight evangelical Christian missionaries were kidnapped Wednesday night as they drove from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad. One woman managed to escape shortly afterward, and the other seven were freed Thursday after either explaining they were missionaries or posing as doctors and nurses.
South Korea is planning to send a large number of troops to northern Iraq.
Intervention by Islamic clerics over the past weekend appeared to be leading to the release of the Japanese hostages, but the optimism suddenly faded and the three were still being held as of Tuesday.
BRITAIN: Gary Teeley, a British civilian contractor, went missing early last week in southern Iraq, but was freed Sunday.
Britain was America’s senior partner in the invasion of Iraq a year ago, and thousands of British troops control the southernmost part of the country.
GERMANY: Two security agents from the German Embassy in Baghdad were missing, Germany’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday. The Foreign Ministry said the next day the two were probably dead. German ZDF and ARD television said the pair were ambushed Wednesday while driving from Amman, Jordan to Baghdad.
TURKEY: Two truck drivers for military supply convoys were released Monday by unknown kidnappers. Turkey, a powerful neighbor of Iraq, officially opposed the U.S.-led invasion and most notably refused to let American troops use Turkey as a staging ground for entry into northern Iraq.
BULGARIA: An unknown number of Bulgarians were claimed to be being held as hostages in Ramadi by a group calling itself the Martyr Ahmed Yassin Brigades, named after a leader of the Palestinian group Hamas killed last month in an Israeli airstrike.
SPAIN: The Martyr Ahmed Yassin Brigades also claimed to be holding an unknown number of Spanish citizens hostage.
PAKISTAN: Three truck drivers for military supply convoys were released Monday by unknown kidnappers. Pakistan is a key ally of the U.S. in its fight against Islamic militant terrorism in Afghanistan.
NEPAL: One truck driver for a military supply convoy was released Monday by unknown kidnappers.
PHILIPPINES: One truck driver for a military supply convoy was released Monday by unknown kidnappers.
INDIA: One truck driver for a military supply convoy was released Monday by unknown kidnappers.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Leave a Reply