Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
November 12, 2006
Pg. 12
By Michael Luo
BAGHDAD, Nov. 11 — The American military on Saturday announced a $50,000 reward for anyone with information leading to the recovery of an American soldier who was captured nearly three weeks ago outside the heavily protected Green Zone.
Iraqi and American soldiers conducted another raid in the impoverished Shiite district of Sadr City on Friday, looking for a “top-level death squad leader” as part of efforts to find the soldier, military officials said Saturday.
Also on Saturday, Sunni Arab gunmen pulled over a group of minibuses carrying Shiites traveling through a volatile region just south of here, killing 10 and kidnapping dozens, Iraqi state television said. And in one of several deadly attacks here in the capital, a pair of car bombs tore through a popular downtown shopping area just after noon, killing at least six people and injuring 32 others, an Interior Ministry official said.
A roadside bomb near Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, killed one Polish and one Slovak soldier late on Friday, The Associated Press said.
The missing American soldier, identified by the military as Specialist Ahmed Kousay al-Taie, 41, an Iraqi-American translator from Ann Arbor, Mich., disappeared Oct. 23 after he left the Green Zone without permission to visit his Iraqi wife at her home nearby. Armed men handcuffed him and took him away, his relatives and the military said.
Since then, he has been the subject of a hunt that has involved some 2,000 American troops and 1,000 Iraqi security officers, who flooded the middle-class Karada neighborhood outside the Green Zone and surrounded Sadr City, where the military and his relatives said they believed he had been taken.
Last week, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki demanded that American troops lift the security cordon that they had placed around Sadr City. The checkpoints were quickly removed, and little has been heard since about progress in the search.
The case took a turn late last week when Entifad Qanbar, an associate of Ahmad Chalabi, the influential Iraqi politician, identified himself as the soldier’s uncle and said that the kidnappers had issued a $250,000 ransom demand. American officials had been meeting with an intermediary trusted by those who had captured his nephew, he said. Mr. Qanbar said that he had asked for proof from the captors that his nephew was still alive, setting a deadline of noon last Saturday.
But he has not had any contact with the kidnappers or their representatives since then, Mr. Qanbar said Saturday.
Several people who claim to know the captors have contacted family members, indicating that he is still alive, he said. The family has also reached out to people on their own, who have given them assurances about his well-being, he said. “God willing, I hope he is alive.” .
Relatives believe a notorious Mahdi Army militia commander named Abu Rami who lived near the wife’s home in Karada took Specialist Taie. Mr. Qanbar said Saturday that he had been told that the commander operated a well-organized criminal ring that functioned independently from the militia, whose members ostensibly claim loyalty to Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric.
American and Iraqi troops have followed up on some 335 tips from Iraqi citizens about Specialist Taie’s disappearance, leading to 53 missions, said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman. The most recent mission took place in Sadr City on Friday, in which five men were detained, he said.
The soldiers in the raid were looking for a death squad leader who “controls the actions of multiple cells, with hundreds of cell members, that conduct sectarian murder and torture, kidnappings, improvised explosive devices attacks and other attacks and crimes against Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces,” the military said in a statement.
The soldiers seized six makeshift bombs and an array of Iraqi Army uniforms, the statement said. Military officials declined to identify the specific target of the raid, but confirmed it was part of its efforts to find Specialist Taie.
In all, 38 people have been arrested and held for questioning in connection with Specialist Taie’s capture, Colonel Garver said.
The attack Saturday on the minibuses took place near Latifiya in the so-called Triangle of Death, an area plagued by Sunni insurgents. The bus had been on its way from the mainly Shiite southern city of Diwaniya to Baghdad, Iraqi state TV reported.
The twin car bombs that killed six people in the capital struck Hafud al-Qadi Street near the Shurja market, an area crowded with stores.
Earlier in the day, another roadside bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad, killing at least one person and wounding five others, an Interior Ministry official said. Another concealed bomb that detonated Saturday evening in the western Baghdad Sunni neighborhood of Amariya killed three people and wounded three others, the official said.
The police also discovered the bodies of 25 people dumped across the city on Saturday, the official said.
Qais Mizher contributed reporting.
November 12, 2006
Pg. 12
By Michael Luo
BAGHDAD, Nov. 11 — The American military on Saturday announced a $50,000 reward for anyone with information leading to the recovery of an American soldier who was captured nearly three weeks ago outside the heavily protected Green Zone.
Iraqi and American soldiers conducted another raid in the impoverished Shiite district of Sadr City on Friday, looking for a “top-level death squad leader” as part of efforts to find the soldier, military officials said Saturday.
Also on Saturday, Sunni Arab gunmen pulled over a group of minibuses carrying Shiites traveling through a volatile region just south of here, killing 10 and kidnapping dozens, Iraqi state television said. And in one of several deadly attacks here in the capital, a pair of car bombs tore through a popular downtown shopping area just after noon, killing at least six people and injuring 32 others, an Interior Ministry official said.
A roadside bomb near Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, killed one Polish and one Slovak soldier late on Friday, The Associated Press said.
The missing American soldier, identified by the military as Specialist Ahmed Kousay al-Taie, 41, an Iraqi-American translator from Ann Arbor, Mich., disappeared Oct. 23 after he left the Green Zone without permission to visit his Iraqi wife at her home nearby. Armed men handcuffed him and took him away, his relatives and the military said.
Since then, he has been the subject of a hunt that has involved some 2,000 American troops and 1,000 Iraqi security officers, who flooded the middle-class Karada neighborhood outside the Green Zone and surrounded Sadr City, where the military and his relatives said they believed he had been taken.
Last week, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki demanded that American troops lift the security cordon that they had placed around Sadr City. The checkpoints were quickly removed, and little has been heard since about progress in the search.
The case took a turn late last week when Entifad Qanbar, an associate of Ahmad Chalabi, the influential Iraqi politician, identified himself as the soldier’s uncle and said that the kidnappers had issued a $250,000 ransom demand. American officials had been meeting with an intermediary trusted by those who had captured his nephew, he said. Mr. Qanbar said that he had asked for proof from the captors that his nephew was still alive, setting a deadline of noon last Saturday.
But he has not had any contact with the kidnappers or their representatives since then, Mr. Qanbar said Saturday.
Several people who claim to know the captors have contacted family members, indicating that he is still alive, he said. The family has also reached out to people on their own, who have given them assurances about his well-being, he said. “God willing, I hope he is alive.” .
Relatives believe a notorious Mahdi Army militia commander named Abu Rami who lived near the wife’s home in Karada took Specialist Taie. Mr. Qanbar said Saturday that he had been told that the commander operated a well-organized criminal ring that functioned independently from the militia, whose members ostensibly claim loyalty to Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric.
American and Iraqi troops have followed up on some 335 tips from Iraqi citizens about Specialist Taie’s disappearance, leading to 53 missions, said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman. The most recent mission took place in Sadr City on Friday, in which five men were detained, he said.
The soldiers in the raid were looking for a death squad leader who “controls the actions of multiple cells, with hundreds of cell members, that conduct sectarian murder and torture, kidnappings, improvised explosive devices attacks and other attacks and crimes against Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces,” the military said in a statement.
The soldiers seized six makeshift bombs and an array of Iraqi Army uniforms, the statement said. Military officials declined to identify the specific target of the raid, but confirmed it was part of its efforts to find Specialist Taie.
In all, 38 people have been arrested and held for questioning in connection with Specialist Taie’s capture, Colonel Garver said.
The attack Saturday on the minibuses took place near Latifiya in the so-called Triangle of Death, an area plagued by Sunni insurgents. The bus had been on its way from the mainly Shiite southern city of Diwaniya to Baghdad, Iraqi state TV reported.
The twin car bombs that killed six people in the capital struck Hafud al-Qadi Street near the Shurja market, an area crowded with stores.
Earlier in the day, another roadside bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad, killing at least one person and wounding five others, an Interior Ministry official said. Another concealed bomb that detonated Saturday evening in the western Baghdad Sunni neighborhood of Amariya killed three people and wounded three others, the official said.
The police also discovered the bodies of 25 people dumped across the city on Saturday, the official said.
Qais Mizher contributed reporting.