BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraqi insurgents Friday released three captives they had threatened to behead – two Turks and a Pakistani – but continued to harass foreign workers, firing rockets into two Baghdad hotels housing security contractors but causing little damage.
In the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, a U.S. Marine was killed Friday and a second died of wounds suffered in a separate engagement the previous day, the military said. At least 853 U.S. service members have died since the war began in March 2003, according to the Pentagon.
The release of the Turkish air-conditioning repairmen had been expected, as their employer, Kayteks, earlier capitulated to militants’ demands that the company cease all support and cooperation with the multinational forces in Iraq.
Arabic satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera aired footage showing the men kneeling at the feet of two masked captors who said they were freeing the Turks for showing “repentance” and out of respect for the Turkish people, who are fellow Muslims.
It was unclear why the insurgents holding Pakistani driver Amjad Hafeez decided to free him, as his U.S. employer – Kellogg Brown &Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton – is one of the largest suppliers of goods and services to the U.S.-led forces. It might have been out of fear that to execute a Muslim would further alienate Iraqis, many of whom were horrified by the savage beheadings of American contractor Nicholas Berg and South Korean translator Kim Sun-il.
There has been no word for three days on the fate of another captive, Lebanese-born U.S. Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun. The 24-year-old from West Jordan, Utah, went missing from his unit on June 19 but was classified as a hostage only on Tuesday, after footage of the blindfolded soldier in desert camouflage fatigues aired on Al-Jazeera.
Three rocket blasts at the Ishtar, commonly called the Sheraton, and Baghdad hotels around 7:30 a.m. inflicted little damage and no significant casualties. But troops inspecting the scene of the attack speculated that a larger assault had been planned. Seventeen more rockets were found in the charred wreckage of a pickup truck and minibus that had been used as mobile launch pads, suggesting the third firing had set the platform ablaze and scuttled the rest of the planned attack.
The toll from car bombs, artillery blasts and roadside bombs has been lower in the five days since the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority passed the reins of government to interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s team and chief administrator Paul Bremer left the country.
Associated Press
Saeeda Jan (right), the mother of kidnapped driver Amjad Hafeez, hugs a relative Friday in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, after hearing about Hafeez’s release.
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