- (Agencies) -- Gunmen kidnapped a Briton and two Americans
from a house in central Baghdad today, the US and British authorities
said.
-
- The three men were employed by GSCS, a building
contracting
firm based in the United Arab Emirates. The Foreign Office would not
release
the name of the British hostage but said his family had been
informed.
-
- The US embassy named its kidnapped citizens as Jack
Hensley
and Eugene Armstrong but gave no further details.
-
- US troops fanned out across the relatively wealthy
al-Mansour
neighbourhood, home to a number of embassies and foreign companies, to
investigate and question witnesses. Neighbours said they had heard two
vehicles drive up to the men's two-storey house at dawn. They later noticed
that an iron gate in the wall around the house had been left open. As it
was normally closed, the neighbours rang the police.
-
- Ziad Tareq, 19, said he had been walking down the street
when he saw a man dressed in black, his face covered with a red scarf,
dragging one of the hostages by the collar and pushing him into a car
parked
outside the house.
-
- A police official, who asked for his name not to be used,
said a car was missing from the house where the westerners were allegedly
taken.
-
- He said the three had apparently been in the garden when
the attack took place, and there had been no sign of fighting.
-
- Neighbours said they did not know exactly who was living
there. There were no signs outside the house indicating the occupants'
identity and the main door was locked. A white communications mast could
be seen on the roof. Several foreign contracting companies and security
firms are based in the area.
-
- Insurgents waging a 17-month campaign in Iraq have
kidnapped
more than 100 foreigners in an attempt to force US and allied forces to
leave the country.
-
- At least 26 drivers, contractors and journalists have
been executed; dozens more have eventually been released alive. Around
20 hostages are still being held, including two French journalists and
two Italian aid workers.
-
- The Italian women, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both
29, were abducted by armed men from their offices in central Baghdad. They
were working on school and water projects for the aid group Un Ponte Per...
(A Bridge To...). There is no word on their fate.
-
- The French reporters, Christian Chesnot and Georges
Malbrunot,
were kidnapped last month by a militant group demanding that France rescind
a ban on wearing headscarves in school. Paris refused, and the law is now
in effect.
-
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
-
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq
- /Story/0,2763,1305742,00.html
|
