Austin American-Statesman (Texas) April 11, 2004
Insurgents threaten to kill U.S. contractor
Iraqi official says U.S., militants OK tentative cease-fire in Fallujah
By Charles Crain, SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Insurgents vowed Saturday night to kill an American contractor unless the U.S. military ends its campaign in the city of Fallujah.
"If you don't respond within 12 hours," one of his captors said in a videotape sent to the Arabic news network Al-Jazeera, "he will be treated worse than those who were killed and burned in Fallujah."
American Marines have pressed an assault in Fallujah since Monday in response to a March 31 attack in which four American security contractors were ambushed and killed by insurgents, then burned and mutilated by a mob.
Hundreds of reinforcements joined Marines besieging Fallujah while Iraqi delegates conducted cease-fire talks Saturday. One delegate, Hachem al-Hassani, said early today that U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents have agreed to a cease-fire, but U.S. officials didn't confirm that.
Hassani said on Al-Jazeera that the cease-fire was to begin at 10 a.m. today (1 a.m. Austin time).
"If it sticks for 12 hours, then there will be a phased withdrawal from the city," he said.
Mahmoud Othman, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, told The Associated Press that an agreement was reached in principle and could be broken by the demands of both sides.
"Fighters in the city say they want the Americans to withdraw, but I don't know how likely that is," he said.
More missing
The American hostage was abducted after an attack on a U.S. supply convoy Friday on Baghdad's western edge. In the Al-Jazeera tape, the man, speaking in front of an Iraqi flag and with his right arm in a sling, identifies himself as Thomas Hamill, 43, of Mississippi.
Kellie Hamill, contacted at their home in Macon, Miss., confirmed that her husband had been captured. She told The Associated Press that he works for the Houston-based engineering and construction company Kellogg, Brown & Root, a division of Halliburton, and referred all other questions to his employer.
A phone message left with the company's answering service wasn't immediately returned.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt refused to comment on efforts to free Hamill or other captives, saying it "would not be helpful to discuss" any plans.
Another group of insurgents who kidnapped two Japanese men and a woman said they would free their captives within 24 hours because of an appeal from Sunni Muslim clerics.
Kidnappers are also holding a Palestinian and a Canadian aid worker. A British citizen and two Germans were also missing, though it isn't known whether they have been abducted.
The German Foreign Ministry said two security agents from its embassy in Baghdad have been missing for several days. It gave no details, but German TV stations reported that the missing were ambushed Wednesday on a routine trip from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad.
Station ARD said the two were agents with GSG-9, an elite German counterterrorism unit trained in freeing hostages and other commando missions.
Two U.S. servicemembers and several contract employees also were still unaccounted for after attacks Friday, said a Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Dan Hetlage.
Attacks continue
The U.S. military and Iraqi security forces continued to come under attack Saturday in Fallujah, in Baghdad and along the highway between those cities as battles with Sunni insurgents and Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's followers entered their seventh day.
Insurgents hit a U.S. air base with mortars in Balad, north of Baghdad, killing an airman.
Other fighters attacked government buildings and police stations in Baqouba, setting off firefights in which about 40 Iraqis were killed. Several U.S. troops were wounded in that battle, said Capt. Issam Bornales, spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade.
Fifty-nine U.S. troops have been killed and 281 wounded so far in the month of April, according to a tally kept by globalsecurity.org.
Young men with rifles and grenade launchers fought Iraqi police and American troops in Azamiyah, a Sunni district in northern Baghdad.
Mustafir Faisil, 22, said he saw insurgents block off a street in the morning and then overrun a police station when officers fired on them. He said the Iraqi police gave up without a fight but that the insurgents left after U.S. troops arrived.
Faisil said several members of the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia loyal to Sadr, joined with Sunni fighters in the attack.
"We hugged them and saluted them," Faisil said. "Now our slogan is, 'there is no difference between Sunni and Shia.' "
Later in the day, the streets of Azamiyah were virtually deserted, with at least one American tank parked in the road and several American soldiers on the sidewalk.
Traffic was lighter and crowds scarcer than usual across Baghdad as some Sunnis observed a call from religious leaders for a general strike in protest of the U.S. military action in Fallujah.
As Marines blocked access to Fallujah and engaged in bloody street fights with guerillas, dismay and outrage has grown among Iraqis concerned about civilian deaths.
Kimmitt said Saturday that the heavy casualties among noncombatants have resulted from the Fallujah insurgents' tactic of hiding among civilians to launch attacks, and he denied targeting the city's residents.
"This is not collective punishment," Kimmitt said. "This is not a punitive operation."
Battalion won't fight
A battalion of the new U.S.-trained Iraqi army refused to go to Fallujah last week to support the Marines, senior U.S. Army officers told The Washington Post, in an incident that cast new doubts on U.S. plans to transfer security matters to Iraqi forces.
The 620-man 2nd Battalion refused to fight Monday after members of the unit were shot at in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad while en route to Fallujah, said Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, the official overseeing the development of Iraqi security forces.
The convoy then turned around and returned to the battalion's home on a former Republican Guard base in Taji, north of the capital.
Eaton said the battalion members insisted during discussions: "We did not sign up to fight Iraqis."
He declined to describe the incident as a mutiny but rather called it "a command failure."
Eaton added: "The lines are blurring for a lot of Iraqis right now, and we're having problems with a lot of security functions right now."
In recent days, perhaps 20 percent to 25 percent of the Iraqi army, civil defense, police and other security forces have quit, changed sides or otherwise failed to perform their duties, a senior Army officer told the Post, speaking Saturday on condition of anonymity.
© Copyright 2004, The Austin American Statesman
