From Michinobu Yanagisawa
A 44-year-old Japanese security consultant has been taken captive by insurgents in western Iraq after being seriously injured when his convoy was attacked Sunday evening, according to the Ansar al-Sunnah Army's Web site. Akihiko Saito disappeared after the convoy in which he was traveling was ambushed on its way to Hit, a town on the western edge of the so-called Sunni Triangle, also known as the Triangle of Death, according to a statement released early Tuesday morning by Saito's employer, British security firm Hart Security Ltd. Hart later that it hired Saito last December to work as a security consultant. Saito has been in charge of guarding several civil engineering firms contracted to do reconstruction work in Iraq. Saito is the only Japanese working for the company, it said. Recently, the predominantly Sunni Hit has been wracked with violence aimed at British and U.S. troops. In June 2003, insurgents in the area blew up a pipeline used to carry petroleum and gas. The Ansar al-Sunnah Army, one of Iraq's most notoriously brutal insurgent groups, claimed in a statement posted on its Web site Monday that Saito had sustained serious injuries. The Al-Qaida-linked Islamist extremist group had said it would soon release video footage of the man they claimed to be Saito, but had yet to do so as of late Tuesday afternoon. A passport and photo identification cards believed to belong to Saito also were posted on the Web site. The Foreign Ministry confirmed the passport was authentic and Saito was missing, but did not say if the consultant had been captured. According to information provided by Hart, the incident occurred between 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. The insurgents ambushed and attacked the convoy on its way from a U.S. military base outside Baghdad to Hit. Saito was the only member of the convoy, which included 12 Iraqis and four other foreigners, to survive the attack, according to the statement on the Web site. The statement added that the U.S. military had dispatched helicopters to assist the convoy, but they arrived too late, leaving them with the sole task of retrieving the bodies. But according to the ministry, Hart refuted the Web site statement, saying a number of people in the convoy had made it back to the company's office. The security firm reported the ambush to the government when it discovered that Saito was not among those who had returned, the ministry added. Saito, from Tokyo, is stationed at the security company's Baghdad office and has been providing security at U.S. military bases in Iraq since he started working for the firm more than a year ago, ministry officials said. The government on Tuesday asked other countries for help to locate Saito. Akira Yamada, minister at the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad, asked Iraqi InteriorM inister Baqir Jabbur for cooperation. Jabbur replied he would do his best to h elp. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Tuesday evening that most information received has not been confirmed and therefore could not be released. Officials in the Japanese Embassy in Iraq met Hart officials in Baghdad and gathered detailed information on the attack. The government has asked the United States and Jordan to provide any i nformation they have on the situation. U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer met with Liberal Democratic Party S ecretary General Tsutomu Takebe at LDP headquarters on Tuesday afternoon and s aid the United States would help Japan as much as possible and it would pass ona ny information it received to Japan as soon as possible. The government set up a crisis center at the Prime Minister's Office at 1 a.m. T uesday. By 2 a.m., the ministry had established a task force headed by Foreign MinisterN obutaka Machimura. At 7:30 a.m. during a task force meeting, it was learned that the passport carried on the militants' Web site was authentic and had been issued to Saito byt he ministry. According to ministry officials, Saito was a member of the Ground Self-Defense F orce from 1979 to 1981 during which he was stationed at Camp Narashino in F unabashi, Chiba Prefecture. At the time of his resignation from the forces, he was a leading private and attached to the 1st Airborne Brigade. Following his s ervice, Saito spent 21 years in the French Foreign Legion. [ ------------------------ 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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