Security forces in Baghdad were hunting for three US citizens whom Iraqi lawmakers yesterday announced had been kidnapped, which if confirmed would make them the first Americans abducted in the country since US troops withdrew in 2011.
Unknown gunmen seized the trio from a private apartment on Friday in the capital’s southeastern Dora District, parliamentary Security and Defense Committee member Mohammed al-Karbouli said, adding that it was not immediately clear if their motives were political or criminal.
Committee deputy head Iskandar Witwit gave a similar account citing senior Iraqi security officials who said the civilians had been taken from the district’s Sihha residential complex.
Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militia fighters — seen as a bulwark in the fight against the Islamic State group — have a heavy presence in that part of the predominately Sunni district.
Witwit said the three were employed by a private company and two of them also have Iraqi citizenship.
Dora was a bastion of the insurgency against the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the site of intense sectarian bloodletting that peaked from 2006 to 2007. Iraqi police now control most checkpoints there.
The capital of Iraq, OPEC’s second-biggest oil exporter, has seen a proliferation in recent years of well-armed criminal gangs that carry out contract killings, kidnappings and extortion.
Iraqi police yesterday set up extra checkpoints in Dora and sent out helicopter search parties.
Two Iraqi Army helicopters were seen hovering over the district, while police vehicles patrolled the streets, residents said.
The US Department of State on Sunday said it was working with Iraqi authorities to locate US citizens reported missing, without confirming they had been kidnapped.
The Iraqi Government has struggled to rein in the Shiite militias, many of which fought the US military following the 2003 invasion and have previously been accused of killing and abducting US citizens.
Iraq has seen a series of abductions of foreign nationals in recent months. At least 26 Qatari hunters kidnapped last month in the southern desert by unknown militants have not yet been found.
In September last year, 18 Turks taken in Baghdad by an armed group that used a Shiite Muslim slogan were released following several weeks in detention.
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