Triangle of Death Hostage Search: Day 9
There is no delicate way to put it: With every passing day, the possibility that the three American soldiers abducted in an ambush nine days ago will be found alive grows slimmer.
This much is certain:
* U.S. military intelligence has a basic understanding of the insurgent network behind the ambush in the Triangle of Death on May 12 that left four soldiers and an Iraqi Army interpreter dead and three missing.
* Given that the search area has been widened beyond the triangle, intelligence does not include where the hostages are being held. Assertions by General David Petraeus that two of the three men are indeed alive did not include how old that information may be.
* The silence from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the group that took credit for the ambush-abductions, is deafening. No photographs or videotapes of the three men, let alone follow-up statements, have been released since an initial statement and brief follow-up warning that U.S. forces should not come after the hostages in the hours after the incident.
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4 Responses to “Triangle of Death Hostage Search: Day 9”
Shaun – In the last couple of days I brought up Ahmed Qusai al-Taei. You mistakenly responded that he was killed in the recent ambush. Ahmed Qusau al-Taei was captured last October and is still missing according to acounts of the recent ambush. Maliki shut down the checkpoints which hindered the search for the Iraqis-American.
I thought you were talking about the Iraqi translator who was killed in the ambush. Sorry.
No further word on Al-Taei in a long time. It is my supposition that he was kidnapped by people more interested in a ransom than in making political hay, but be that as it may it sends a conflicting message that there are 6,000 troops beating the bush for three hostages (two whites, one Latino) while there never was much of an effort to find Al-Taei, an Iraqi by birth.
Shaun We levelled Fallujah over the multilation of four bodies, I wonder how much of this is for PR.
I keep coming back to the fact that Al-Taei was not a native-born American in comparing the reaction to his abduction and the abduction of the three men in the Triangle of Death, but that may be oversimplifying things,
The situation on the ground in Iraq in October when Al-Taei went missing is not appreciably different than the situation now, but we are at the Mother of All Tipping Points. That is to say that the president’s support has eroded substantially and despite some isolated successes the surge isn’t doing the trick.
The apparent indifference to Al-Taei notwithstanding, I have written that Americans do not abide hostage takings, whether Iran in 1979, Lebanon in the 1980s or Iraq in 2007. Neither does the military, so the stakes are especially high.