BAGHDAD, Iraq – U.S. authorities said Wednesday a young American who was beheaded by militants had been warned by the FBI to leave Iraq and was offered a plane ride to safety at a time when a new wave of violence spread across the country, making road travel extremely dangerous.
Mystery surrounded not only Nicholas Berg’s disappearance but also why he had been held by Iraqi police for about two weeks and questioned by FBI agents three times. Berg’s family disputed U.S. officials’ claims that Berg was never in U.S. custody.
“The Iraqi police do not tell the FBI what to do, the FBI tells the Iraqi police what to do. Who do they think they’re kidding?” Berg’s father, Michael, said from his home in West Chester, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb.
Berg was last in contact with U.S. officials in Baghdad on April 10; his body was found Saturday in Baghdad. Staff members at the $30-a-night Al-Fanar Hotel in Baghdad said Berg stayed there for several days until April 10.
Two e-mails sent by Berg to his family and friends show the 26-year-old businessman traveled widely and unguarded throughout Iraq – an unsafe practice rarely done by Westerners.
The FBI warned Berg shortly before his disappearance that Iraq was too volatile a place for unprotected American civilians, but he turned down a State Department offer to fly him home, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Michael Berg said his son refused a U.S. offer in early April to board an outbound charter jet because he believed travel to the airport was too dangerous. American soldiers refer to the airport highway as RPG Alley because of frequent attacks by insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades.
According to the State Department, Berg told an American diplomat in Baghdad that he preferred to travel on his own to Kuwait.
Berg first worked in Iraq in December and January, and returned in March. He was inspecting communications facilities, some of which were destroyed in the war or by looters.
He was beheaded on a video posted Tuesday on a Web site. It bore the title “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American,” referring to an associate of Osama bin Laden believed behind a wave of suicide bombings in Iraq.
Associated Press
A photo of Nick Berg is shown on a neighbor’s mailbox Wednesday in front of Berg’s home in West Chester, Pa.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
