Translator among group abducted in Iraq Captive has U.S., Iraqi and Romanian citizenship, official says Thursday, March 31, 2005 Posted: 3:34 PM EST (2034 GMT)
Al-Jazeera broadcast images of what it said were four hostages in Iraq. BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A translator with U.S., Romanian and Iraqi citizenship was with three Romanian journalists who were kidnapped this week in Baghdad, a senior Romanian official said Thursday. The satellite news channel Al-Jazeera broadcast video Wednesday it said showed the three journalists. A fourth man also appeared in the video but was not identified. The Romanian official said the man, Mohamad Munaf, was a translator for the journalists. An Iraqi native, he has been living in Romania for several years, the official said. On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department said an American was captured with the Romanians. The three Romanians -- Marie Jeanne Ion, Sorin Dumitru Miscoci and Eduard Ovidiu Ohanesian -- work for Prima TV. They were abducted Monday night. (Full story) Prima TV confirmed the three were in the hostage video. One journalist used a cell phone to call her family and editor shortly after the abduction. It's the first time Romanian civilians have been kidnapped in Iraq, the official said, and a crisis management team is working out of the president's office. Romania, the United States and Iraq are coordinating rescue efforts. Romania also is consulting other countries whose citizens have been kidnapped in Iraq, the official said. Five die in bombings Bombings in two northern Iraqi cities killed five people Thursday. A suicide car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army convoy in Tuz Khurmatro, south of Kirkuk, killing a soldier and an elderly man and child, said Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin, an Iraqi commander. Eight Iraqi soldiers also were wounded, including two in critical condition. The blast occurred as the convoy was protecting a Shiite Muslim procession, Amin said. In Samarra, a car bomb detonated near a U.S. military convoy, killing two Iraqi civilians and wounding 11 others, a provincial official in Tikrit said. Five children were among the wounded, the official said. Tikrit and Samarra, north of Baghdad, are in Salaheddin province. In the southern city of Basra, a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol wounded five police officers Thursday, a police official said. The five were taken to a hospital, the official added. Four U.S. troops died within the last 24 hours, the U.S. military said Thursday, bringing the American troop death toll to 1,533. One soldier was killed in action near Hawijah on Thursday. A soldier in the northern city of Mosul, a soldier in Baghdad, and a Marine in Anbar province also died in action Wednesday, the military said. Other developments The U.S. intelligence community was "simply wrong" in its assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities before the U.S. invasion, a presidential commission said Thursday. (Full story) A military court in Germany on Thursday convicted a U.S. soldier on charges tied to the fatal shooting of a wounded Iraqi man, The Associated Press reported. (Full story) The daughter of an American truck driver killed in Iraq last year has sued Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR, claiming that her father, Tony Johnson, was not properly shielded from harm in his work. (Full story) Families of four American security contractors who were killed and mutilated in Falluja in March 2004 have sued Blackwater Security Consulting, accusing it of compromising security mission safeguards and standards. The company has filed a motion to dismiss the case, saying the men signed contracts to assume any risks from working in "volatile, hostile and extremely dangerous circumstances." CNN's Kevin Flower, Ayman Mohyeldin and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report. Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report. <http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/03/31/iraq.main/index.html> http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/03/31/iraq.main/index.html [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/_OLuKD/8WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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