Thread: Iraq's Interior Ministry: Two Americans rescued

Iraq's Interior Ministry: Two Americans rescued

POSTED: 2:39 p.m. EST, November 17, 2006

• NEW: Iraq's Interior Ministry says two kidnapped Americans have been rescued
• Troops are searching for five security contractors, including four Americans
• U.S. Embassy confirms ambush involved militia posing as Iraqi police
• One hostage identified as Paul Reuben, a former police officer from Minnesota


BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Iraqi Interior Ministry on Friday told CNN it had rescued two Americans from a house during an operation, but offered no details.
The announcement came as troops were searching aggressively for four American security contractors and their Austrian colleague Friday, the day after the civilians were abducted when their convoy was ambushed in southern Iraq.
Neither the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad nor the U.S. military could confirm the Iraqi Interior Ministry's announcement. Two security companies involved in incidents Thursday and Friday also could not confirm the information.
It was also unclear whether the Americans the Interior Ministry was referring to were among the kidnapped contractors.
Earlier, The Associated Press had quoted Basra's provincial governor as saying Iraqi police had rescued two of the missing contractors near the Kuwait border on Friday.
"Police were able to free two of the foreigners kidnapped, and they are in good health," Gov. Mohammed al-Waili said in a telephone interview, according to AP.
The captives were found in Dawajin, an area near the place where their convoy was hijacked, AP quoted him as saying.
U.S. officials could not confirm the governor's report.
A spokesman for Crescent Security Group had said earlier Friday that five of their security personnel were "unaccounted for."
One of the kidnapped Americans has been identified as Paul Reuben, a former police officer from the Minneapolis, Minnesota, suburb of St. Louis Park. Another contractor has been identified as a 25-year-old former soldier from Austria.
Their supply convoy was traveling from Kuwait, where Crescent operates, to Tallil Airbase near Nasiriya in southern Iraq when it was ambushed, the Crescent spokesman said.
Militia posing as Iraqi police attacked the convoy, using a fake police checkpoint, according to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
The attackers took 19 heavy trucks and one security vehicle, the embassy said, noting that the convoy had consisted of 43 such trucks and six security vehicles.
In addition, the attackers took 14 hostages, releasing nine truck drivers and keeping the five security personnel, the embassy added.
The embassy's information corroborated what a military source told CNN earlier.
Crescent would not divulge the number of people in the convoy but identified the released hostages as being of South Asian origin.
Except for the missing five, "everyone else has been accounted for," the Crescent spokesman said.
Crescent provides security for sites, individuals and convoys in Iraq, employing a mix of Western and local workers with military and law enforcement experience, according to the company's Web site. (Watch why private military contractors view their job as something worth dying for -- 7:26 )
On Friday, British-led forces in southeastern Iraq responded to a "security incident" between another convoy of private contractors and Iraqi security forces, a British military spokesman said. One Briton was wounded in the incident, which took place around noon just southwest of Basra in Zubeir.
No details were given on the size or makeup of the convoy, but the British troops arrived "long after the firefight was over" to investigate, the spokesman said.
Top Sunni group to Sunnis: Quit government

Amid the furor over a warrant for an influential Sunni Arab leader, Iraq's government on Friday clarified it had issued an investigation warrant, not an arrest warrant.
The legal action was taken to simply "check security files linked" to Hareth al-Dhari, said an aide to Ali al-Dabbagh, the government spokesman.
Earlier, the Interior Ministry's Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf told CNN an arrest warrant had been issued for al-Dhari, accusing him of violating Iraq's anti-terrorism law by inciting sectarian violence and killings.
Al-Dhari has been a fervent critic of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government.
What happens next "depends on the decision of the Iraqi judiciary .... away from any political considerations," the government said.
The influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, a group of top religious leaders for the nation's Sunni minority, denounced the "arrest warrant" for its leader and called on Sunni politicians to quit the government.
"We call on Arab League and its secretary general, Amr Moussa, to condemn this cowardly act because it contradicts all the conferences held by Arab League to achieve national reconciliation," it said.
The association believes the government targets Sunnis and their mosques, and reports of the arrest warrant threatened to further inflame Sunni-Shiite violence.
25 bodies found

Meanwhile, 25 bullet-riddled bodies were found Friday in various neighborhoods across Baghdad, all believed to be victims of Sunni-Shiite sectarian revenge killings, police said.
At least eight were blindfolded, tied up and apparently tortured, police said.
The discovery brings the three-day total of bodies found to 115.

CNN