The kidnapping of four Americans and one Austrian took place near Basra:
Four Americans and an Austrian have been kidnapped from a convoy of civilians in southern Iraq, US and Iraqi sources have said.
All those kidnapped were “security contractors.”
(cont.)
Of course, the last time four American security contractors were kidnapped, it was in the Sunni dominated city of Fallujah, the contractors were killed and their bodies were mutilated. And we all know what happened after that incident:
The assault upon Fallujah, 40 miles from Baghdad, took place over a two-week period last November. US commanders said the city was an insurgent stronghold. Civilians were ordered to evacuate in advance. Around 50 US troops and an estimated 1,200 insurgents were killed. How many civilians were killed is unclear. Up to 300,000 people were driven from the city. […]
[T]he US used “weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud” and that he watched “pieces of these bombs explode into large fires that continued to burn on the skin even after people dumped water on the burns.” The doctor said he “treated people who had their skin melted.”
This time the kidnapping took place in Shi’a controlled southern Iraq. Allegedly, our government is considering the merits of backing the Shi’ites in their sectarian conflict with Iraq’s Sunnis, so a repeat of the “Battle of Fallujah” seems unlikely. Nonetheless, it appears that US and British forces are conducting raids to recover these hostages:
Reports said British and US forces had mounted raids in the area to find the hostages.
British military spokesman Tane Dunlop told Associated Press news agency there had been a battle with gunmen but it was not known whether the kidnappers were involved.
It’s doubtful that this kidnapping is related to the Sunni insurgents. The fact that the other foreigners (from India, Pakistan and the Philippines ) employed by the security contractor in question, Crescent Security Group, were released by the kidnappers, indicates that this probably was not the work of some lawless gang or Sunni insurgents, but was the handiwork of one of the local Shi’a militias that dominate the region. The size of the convoy which was under the protection of Crescent’s operatives when the kidnapping occurred also argues that this incident was undertaken by militiamen.
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.
Regardless of the outcome, this is one more sign that our presence in Iraq is opposed by both the Sunni insurgents and the Shi’a militias. In any event, it shows that the high number of unregulated security contractors in Iraq, whose lawless conduct in the course of their employment has often been called into question, continues to be resented and even despised by many Iraqis, both Shi’a and Sunni. That these contractors were forcibly taken during the course of their official duties (i.e., protecting the convoy as it made its way from Kuwait northward) is disturbing to say the least.
Americans Kidnapped in Southern Iraq