BAGHDAD, Iraq – Gunmen kidnapped a Lebanese-American businessman – the second U.S. citizen seized this week in Baghdad – and videotape Wednesday showed the beheadings of three Iraqi National Guardsmen and an Iraqi officer.
Elsewhere, a U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded in a roadside bombing 12 miles south of the capital. A suicide driver detonated his vehicle at a checkpoint near Baghdad airport, injuring nine Iraqis and prompting U.S. troops to close the main route into the city for hours.
U.S. jets were in action again late Wednesday over Fallujah, striking insurgent targets in the northeastern and southern parts of the city where American forces are said to be gearing up for a major assault. Residents reported fierce exchanges of fire after midnight on the edge of the city.
Gunmen killed a senior Oil Ministry official, Hussein Ali al-Fattal, after he left his house Wednesday in the Yarmouk district of western Baghdad, police said. Al-Fattal was the general manager of a state-owned company that distributes petroleum byproducts.
Al-Jazeera television broadcast a threat by an unspecified armed group to strike oil installations and government buildings if the Americans launch an all-out assault on Fallujah. The report was accompanied by a videotape showing about 20 armed men brandishing various weapons.
The violence served as grim reminder of Iraq’s rapidly deteriorating security situation.
Radim Sadeq, an American of Lebanese origin who worked for a mobile phone company, was grabbed about midnight Tuesday when he answered the door of his home in Baghdad’s upscale Mansour neighborhood, officials said. No group claimed responsibility.
It was the second abduction this week in Mansour, where many foreign companies are based. On Monday, gunmen stormed the two-story compound of a Saudi company, abducting six people, including an unidentified American, a Nepalese, a Filipino and three Iraqis, two of whom were later released. No claim has been made for the kidnappings.
More than 170 foreigners have been kidnapped and more than 30 of them killed in Iraq since Saddam Hussein’s regime fell in April last year. At least six of the foreigners were beheaded by followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant who has sworn allegiance to al-Qaida.
As the wave of abductions continues, another militant group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, posted a videotape on a Web site Wednesday showing the beheading of man it said was an Iraqi army major captured in the northern city of Mosul.
A statement by the group called Maj. Hussein Shanoun an “apostate” and said he confessed to taking part in attacks against insurgents on orders of the Americans.
In another video, aired Wednesday on Al-Jazeera, a group calling itself the Brigades of Iraq’s Honorables said it beheaded three Iraqi National Guards, accusing them of spying for the Americans.
Also on Wednesday:
* Hungary announced it will withdraw its 300 noncombat troops from Iraq by March 31. The country’s new prime minister said staying longer would be an “impossibility.”
* In Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, residents said U.S. soldiers clashed with gunmen in the city center. Four Iraqis were killed and two injured, said Ahmed Jadour of the Samarra General Hospital.
Associated Press
U.S. soldiers walk past a vehicle damaged Wednesday in a car bomb explosion on the outskirts of Baghdad.
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