...While as many as 200,000 Americans are in Iraq, most are easily identified with specific groups: U.S. military, diplomats and others working for the Coalition Provisional Authority, private contractors working on coalition reconstruction projects or providing security, journalists and those working for aid groups.
Berg apparently fit into none of those groups, and what's known about his activities in Iraq comes from interviews with his parents and a lawsuit they filed alleging he was being held illegally by the U.S. military in Iraq.
"I think part of what got him into trouble was that he wasn't afraid to be in with groups that most Americans won't be with," said his mother, Suzanne. "And I don't think he understood the danger of . . . traveling with non-Americans. That's probably what killed him. He was probably in a group of non-Americans and stood out like a sore thumb."
According to his father, Michael, the younger Berg owned a business called Prometheus Methods Tower Service Inc. and earned his living climbing communications towers to inspect the antennas, the electrical connections and the structures.
He first went to Iraq on Dec. 21, on what his father described as "an exploratory mission." He stayed until Feb. 1, making contact with a company that indicated there probably would be work for him later.
He returned to Iraq in March. He kept in touch with his family by phone or e-mail every day. He had planned to return March 30, in time for a friend's wedding...
...How 26-year-old Nick Berg fell into the hands of Islamist militants is unclear, but while in Iraq he also came to the attention of the FBI and the Iraqi police. The state department said he was a private citizen who was not employed under any known contract.
He owned a business called Prometheus Methods Tower Service, inspecting antennae on communications towers, and went to Iraq last December, apparently independently, to look for work. He stayed until February. "It was more of an exploratory mission," Michael Berg told the Philadelphia Inquirer last week. His parents say he was lured partly by a sense of adventure, and partly because he was a "staunch supporter of the government position in Iraq and he wanted to go over there and help", according to the paper.
He returned to Iraq on March 14, believing that he had found work there, then told his family he would be back in the US by March 30, in time for a friend's wedding. But he failed to turn up for his flight.
The next day, FBI agents arrived at Berg's family home asking why he was in Iraq. They informed Mr and Mrs Berg that their son was in jail...