Another case of an American reported to be held hostage pleading for his life in Iraq:
An American citizen who was taken captive in Iraq on Sunday has pleaded for his life in a video broadcast on Aljazeera.The tape on Wednesday showed a man sitting behind a wooden desk as three men pointed their guns towards him.
He was holding what looked like a passport and a photo identification.
The US embassy spokesman in Baghdad – Bob Callahan – confirmed the captive’s name as Jeffrey Ake and that the pictures appeared to be consistent with his appearance, but declined to give further details.
Aljazeera did not air the tape’s audio, but said Ake had asked the US government to start a dialogue with the Iraqi resistance.
Note that in this case there IS confirmation of his identity by the U.S. Embassy and his likeness. Not good news. The only good news seems to be that this time there is no threat of a beheading. Perhaps that tactic generated a backlash so they’re reverting to more traditional ways of whacking helpless people who they’ve kidnapped off the streets.
This comes to us via the great new tabloid site Sploid.
UPDATE: The kidnapped man may be from Indiana.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.