Deadly 24 hours in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Six American soldiers, five Iraqi police officers and a senior judge were killed during a deadly 24-period spanning Monday night and Tuesday, and Arab satellite television broadcast a videotape purportedly showing an American hostage pleading for his life with a rifle pointed at his head.

Al-Jazeera television identified the man as Roy Hallums, 56, a civilian contractor who was kidnapped Nov. 1 from his Saudi employer’s Iraq headquarters in Baghdad. He was shown rubbing his hands together and calling on Arab leaders to save him.

“I am please asking for help because my life is in danger, because it’s been proved I worked for American forces,” the man said. Until the broadcast, Hallums had not been heard from or seen since his kidnapping. “I’m not asking for any help from President Bush because I know of his selfishness and unconcern for those who’ve been pushed into this hellhole.”

The hostage said he wanted help from Arab rulers, in particular from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, “because he’s known for helping those who are suffering.”

The U.S. and Iraqi security forces killed Monday night and Tuesday died in several incidents, including a road accident that killed five soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division.

The five died when their Bradley fighting vehicle rolled into a canal at 8 p.m. Monday near the town of Khan Bani Saad northeast of Baghdad. Two soldiers were injured in the accident.

The sixth American fatality Monday night was a soldier with Task Force Baghdad who died of injuries he received when his patrol was attacked with a roadside bomb, according to a military statement.

In the deadliest of several attacks on Iraqi security forces, at least four police officers died and three were wounded in an ambush at a polling center in the Rashad neighborhood of Baghdad. The Interior Ministry could not confirm the deaths.

A police captain at the Muthana police station, who declined to give his name, said police received a call that a man with a gun was threatening people at a high school. Nine officers responded to the call.

“Are you the policemen?” the armed man asked, the captain said. When they responded that they were, the man started shooting, killing four of them, the captain said.

Tuesday, a senior Iraqi judge was gunned down.

The Justice Ministry identified the judge as Qais Hashim Shameri, secretary general of the ministry’s judges council. Gunmen sprayed his car with bullets. An insurgent group, the Ansar al-Sunna Army, asserted responsibility for the slaying.

Associated Press

A man identified as American Roy Hallums pleads for his life in a video released Tuesday by Iraqi insurgents.

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