The US embassy says “several” Americans have gone missing in Iraq after local media reported that three US citizens had been kidnapped in Baghdad.
“We are working in full cooperation with Iraqi authorities to locate the missing Americans,” US embassy spokesman Scott Bolz said.
Bolz did not identify the missing Americans or say what they were doing in Iraq.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said “due to privacy considerations” he had nothing further to add about the missing Americans.
“The safety and security of Americans abroad is our highest priority,” Kirby said.
The comments by US officials came after the Arab news channel, al-Arabiya, citing its own sources, reported that three Americans had been kidnapped by militias in Baghdad.
Iraqi media reports said the Americans went missing in the south of the capital on their way to Baghdad International Airport.
A Western security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief the media, told the Associated Press news agency on Sunday that he had been told that three Americans went missing 24 to 48 hours ago.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility.
Kidnappings in Iraq have been carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Shia militias, as well as criminal gangs demanding ransom payments or disgruntled employees seeking to resolve workplace disputes.
The incident comes after a week that has seen a deterioration of security in and around the Iraqi capital after months of relative calm.
ISIL claimed a number of attacks in Baghdad and neighbouring Diyala province last week that killed more than 50 people, including a high-profile attack on a Baghdad mall. The string of ISIL attacks on civilian targets within areas of Iraqi government control follow battlefield losses, most recently in western Iraq.
Last month, Iraqi troops pushed fighters out of the centre of Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province in Iraq’s Sunni heartland.(Al JAzeera)
Link: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/americans-reported-missing-iraq-160118031414659.html
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