BeautifulDisaster - banned
10-30-2006, 12:05 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A U.S. soldier kidnapped last week in Baghdad was married to an Iraqi college student and was with his wife and her family when hooded gunmen dragged him out of a house, bound his hands and threw him in the back seat of a white Mercedes, a woman claiming to be his mother-in-law said Monday.
The U.S. military has not officially identified the missing man.
The woman said several of the soldier's in-laws put up a futile struggle to stop the abduction by men believed to be Mehdi Army militia fighters.
U.S. military regulations forbid soldiers from marrying citizens of a country where American forces are engaged in combat. There was no immediate comment from the military about the account of the soldier's abduction.
The U.S. military has said the soldier, a linguist of Iraqi descent, was visiting family in central Baghdad's Karada district when he was abducted. His kidnappers used his cell phone to contact his family, it said.
The military did not give further details and a massive search for him by U.S. and Iraqi forces has been under way since the October 23 abduction.
The mother-in-law told The Associated Press in the family's Karada home that her daughter, a 26-year-old physics student, met the soldier a year ago. The couple were married in August and spent their honeymoon in Egypt.
She showed an AP reporter photographs of the couple in Cairo, one of them dated August 14.
A photograph of the couple, showing the soldier in a gray suit and his wife in a red dress, was hanging on the wall of the living room in the two-room apartment, where the newlywed couple stayed when the soldier came to visit. The apartment was in a neglected, three-story building on a quiet street.
"She is so upset that she keeps threatening to take her own life when we speak on the telephone every day," the mother-in-law said of her daughter, who is in her final year at Baghdad's al-Mustansariyah University.
The mother-in-law said the soldier's abduction was preceded by an incident on the same day when a neighbor put a gun to the soldier's head as he was making his way on a motorbike to a nearby home where his wife was visiting.
The neighbor later said he was suspicious of the soldier because he had not seen him before in the neighborhood.
"(The soldier) was frightened and his wife was crying," said the mother-in-law. "Fifteen minutes later a car came and stopped outside [the] house and four armed men jumped out. They wore black pants, black shirts and white masks. They dragged [the soldier] out and slapped handcuffs on him before they bundled him into the back seat of the car.
"My daughters struggled with the kidnappers. One of them broke her hand and another had her hand cut in the struggle. They were begging the gunmen not to take him," said the mother-in-law.
One of her sons and the neighbor followed the kidnappers in another car, but turned back before they could learn where the gunmen were headed. They feared that they too might be kidnapped. The neighbor has since left the district with his family and gone into hiding, said the mother-in-law.
The mother-in-law said several of her children witnessed the abduction. She said the wife of the U.S. soldier and two of her siblings -- a sister and a brother -- were later taken by American troops to the heavily fortified Green Zone where they are kept for their safety.
The zone is a large area in central Baghdad that houses the U.S. Embassy, offices of the Iraqi government and parliament, and hundreds of American troops
The U.S. military has not officially identified the missing man.
The woman said several of the soldier's in-laws put up a futile struggle to stop the abduction by men believed to be Mehdi Army militia fighters.
U.S. military regulations forbid soldiers from marrying citizens of a country where American forces are engaged in combat. There was no immediate comment from the military about the account of the soldier's abduction.
The U.S. military has said the soldier, a linguist of Iraqi descent, was visiting family in central Baghdad's Karada district when he was abducted. His kidnappers used his cell phone to contact his family, it said.
The military did not give further details and a massive search for him by U.S. and Iraqi forces has been under way since the October 23 abduction.
The mother-in-law told The Associated Press in the family's Karada home that her daughter, a 26-year-old physics student, met the soldier a year ago. The couple were married in August and spent their honeymoon in Egypt.
She showed an AP reporter photographs of the couple in Cairo, one of them dated August 14.
A photograph of the couple, showing the soldier in a gray suit and his wife in a red dress, was hanging on the wall of the living room in the two-room apartment, where the newlywed couple stayed when the soldier came to visit. The apartment was in a neglected, three-story building on a quiet street.
"She is so upset that she keeps threatening to take her own life when we speak on the telephone every day," the mother-in-law said of her daughter, who is in her final year at Baghdad's al-Mustansariyah University.
The mother-in-law said the soldier's abduction was preceded by an incident on the same day when a neighbor put a gun to the soldier's head as he was making his way on a motorbike to a nearby home where his wife was visiting.
The neighbor later said he was suspicious of the soldier because he had not seen him before in the neighborhood.
"(The soldier) was frightened and his wife was crying," said the mother-in-law. "Fifteen minutes later a car came and stopped outside [the] house and four armed men jumped out. They wore black pants, black shirts and white masks. They dragged [the soldier] out and slapped handcuffs on him before they bundled him into the back seat of the car.
"My daughters struggled with the kidnappers. One of them broke her hand and another had her hand cut in the struggle. They were begging the gunmen not to take him," said the mother-in-law.
One of her sons and the neighbor followed the kidnappers in another car, but turned back before they could learn where the gunmen were headed. They feared that they too might be kidnapped. The neighbor has since left the district with his family and gone into hiding, said the mother-in-law.
The mother-in-law said several of her children witnessed the abduction. She said the wife of the U.S. soldier and two of her siblings -- a sister and a brother -- were later taken by American troops to the heavily fortified Green Zone where they are kept for their safety.
The zone is a large area in central Baghdad that houses the U.S. Embassy, offices of the Iraqi government and parliament, and hundreds of American troops