Kidnapping of Americans Linked to al-Sadr

ABC News ^ | November 17 2006 | LUIS MARTINEZ

[jmc1969]

A senior Defense Department official told ABC News that Shiite militiamen tied to anti-American cleric Moqtada al Sadr were behind the abduction of four American security contractors and an Austrian co-worker seized in a brazen attack on a supply convoy near the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

The search for the missing contractors resulted in a raid by coalition forces earlier today near the Kuwait border that resulted in the deaths of two Iraqi gunmen, but no hostages were found.

Throughout the day, statements from Iraqi officials — later discounted — led to reports that some of the hostages had been released or found dead. However, their employer, Crescent Security Group, said there had been no claim of responsibility, no demand for ransom and no communication of any kind from the hijackers.

Despite the confusion, new details emerged about the incident Thursday that took place 20 kilometers north of the Iraqi city of Safwan, located near the border with Kuwait.

A senior defense official said it was believed that the gunmen who ambushed the convoy were wearing newly issued Iraqi police uniforms that are supposed to be tightly controlled, hard to duplicate and were issued only last month.

Only a month ago, the coalition began distributing the digitally altered blue camouflage uniforms to National Police Brigades. The uniforms are also tied to the mass kidnapping earlier this week in Baghdad at the Education Ministry.

[RunningWolf]

Yes a very narrow window.

BTW I wonder if this site is getting a 'DOS' attack?

[ARealMothersSonForever]

Either the boot comes down on the Madhi Army Mr. President or I am no longer supporting Americans dying to put down al-Sadr's enemies in Iraq to make the country safe for him to rule.

We have a quorum. Mookie feeds worms, or the executive branch popularity goes to zero. Throwing Rumsfeld under the bus does not cut the muster. Pelosi may get her impeachment.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

This guy kives to fight because of the NYT and the Democrats.

[ARealMothersSonForever]

It is called a Distributed Denial Of Service, DDOS. Not happening. Other networks have issues.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

This guy lives to fight because of the NYT and the Democrats.

[sageb1]

"BTW I wonder if this site is getting a 'DOS' attack?"

Something has been going on for the past 2 or 3 weeks. Other freepers have mentioned problems here and there.

[sageb1]

Was it lgf that said something about a bot of some sort?

[RunningWolf]

Denial of Service Attack (DoS) per Symantec
Many DoS attack tools are capable of executing a Distributed DoS attack.

Things get abbreviated. I am used to hearing it as DOS for short.

[ARealMothersSonForever]

Counter, you still got that login from a couple weeks back?

[NickatNite2003]

Mookie just pawn in game of Life.

[miliantnutcase]

(shatner scream) SAAAADRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Atchafalaya]

re: glitch; yep and this site is ssllooowwww.

[jmc1969]

Its not Sadr I worry about. In the political sphere he would eventually get marginalized and screw himself. Its his d*mn militia that is destabilizing all of Iraq and butchering Iraqis by the thousands as well as attacking US troops and American civilians.

[sageb1]

The first error message I got was a 500. What does that signify? Anything special?

[Marine_Uncle]

Things have gotten totally out of hand regarding the Sadr/Mahdi army issue.
If Maliki does not follow through by the end of December, based on what the US supposedly told him to accomplish, then I to am going to change directions as how I view the Iraqi situation.
It is one thing, and reasonable IMHO, to expect many Saddamist, al Qaeda, and splinter radical Sunni religious groups to be hard to ferret out, and another to avoid eliminating a number of well organized and VISIBLE militias.
Maliki had better start jumping through the friggen hoops soon.
Perhaps it is time for a number of us to unite and ask Jim to draft a letter/email to send to say Tony Snow that would represent the vast majority of Free Republic and obviously associative web/blog sites on this issue.
Most of us have shown great restraints in how we share our feelings on this issue. But surely the time is running out on future hopes of things actually getting better.
The time is long overdue for these Iraqi politicians to stop screwing off and doing something about this mess.
The Iraqi army and police are supposed to be eliminating all causes of sectarian violence. Do they need to scrap a huge portion of those we supposedly vetted and then trained.
Have to get some shut eye. Been a long day at work.

[RunningWolf]

Internal Error 500:
The server was unable to send the html document to you due to an internal (server software) error.

http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/writeus/error.html

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Either the boot comes down on the Madhi Army Mr. President or I am no longer supporting Americans dying to put down al-Sadr's enemies in Iraq to make the country safe for him to rule.

I'm sure the President is seriously studying your ultimatum.

Americans don't die here to put down Mooktie's enemies. When they die, it is because OUR enemies, America's enemies, Western Christendom's enemies, get lucky.

Get straight want you are not supporting.

[jmc1969]

The Iraqi police especially in Baghdad is very infiltrated.

The Iraqi Army is still deciently non-sectarian, but I see signs that Sadr is trying to change that.

Allawi gave an interview this week and was quite blunt that Iraq really does not have much time left. The US is going to have to take decisive action of some kind very soon or we lose Iraq and the entire region to Iran and al-Qaeda.

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

FR-mail...;0)

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Either the boot comes down on the Madhi Army Mr. President or I am no longer supporting Americans dying to put down al-Sadr's enemies in Iraq to make the country safe for him to rule.

I'm sure the President is seriously studying your ultimatum.

Americans don't die here to put down Mooktie's enemies. When they die, it is because OUR enemies, America's enemies, Western Christendom's enemies, get lucky.

Get straight what you are not supporting.