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Friday, September 17, 2004
dancing to
t0 a despe:
Hostage crisis
nIraq escalates
By Mariam Fam
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
>n,the
1 combined.
’e sure to J
The use oil BAGHDAD, Iraq — A team
gles and b i kidnappers grabbed two
work topflmencans and a Briton in a dawn
that will »id on their home on a leafy
Baghdad street Thursday — a
able, but u r; »ld abduction that underlines the
r evolve akMcreasmg danger for foreigners in
the tough c*eembattled capital as violence
i wild and c!* ,ars a h ea( l of national elections
d suicidal (Manned for early next year,
tumbling, a The three worked for Gulf Ser-
pces Co., a United Arab Emir-
dictability Mes-based construction company.
' cast makeff^y were Doit'S wor * < '•tnder
watching Mantracts with them in Baghdad,”
er w'hile s Jiid State Department spokesman
tional drar R chard Boucher -
I us, it’s altl ^ * east Bve ot * lcr Westerners
cast with if e bein 8 held hostage in Iraq,
'Micluding an Iraq-Amcrican man,
ogether enM v0 ^ ema * e Italian aid workers
o much jntJtdhvo Trench reporters, both of
nning comi .Jhom have dark hair,
deleted scM * nsur g ents have turned to kid-
, t | ie were M a Ppi n g s an d spectacular bomb-
•illva wellf^ 5 as tbe wea P on °T choice to
iressure the United States and
a collectiof ,i . r i j
( |, , it allies to pull out of Iraq and
«lf jnbarrass the interim govem-
’ n ent of Prime Minister Ayad Al-
|\\i. Even in the heavily guarded
reen Zone — where the U.S.
Embassy is located — foreigners
fere warned in the last 10 days to
le on guard against possible kid
lapping attempts, said a U.S. of-
Icial on condition of anonymity.
I More than 100 foreigners
lave been kidnapped, some in a
lid to collect lucrative ransoms,
■any have been executed, cre-
mtemewsl
ikes featun
ause the ai
pltiii yem
Iftt
Efo
ating a seige-like mentality
among the dwindling interna
tional community.
Iraqi interim President Ghazi
al-Yawer, on a visit to The
Hague, Netherlands, insisted that
security was Iraq’s priority and
that it was “a little bit too prema
ture to decide” whether elections
would be held as planned.
By trying to scare away foreign
workers, the kidnappers could be
trying to fan such resentment and
further stall reconstruction proj
ects by driving away those who
coordinate and run programs.
Other kidnapping victims have
been blue-collar workers, driving
trucks, rebuilding electrical plants
and guarding building sites.
Many members of the be
sieged international community
have hired anned guards and
built blast walls around their
compounds to ward against the
daily mortars and car bombs. But
some companies — whose work
is critical to Iraq’s reconstruction
— are pulling out after conclud
ing the risks are too great.
Anthony Cordesman, a military
analyst w ith the Center for Strategic
and International Studies in Wash
ington, said the violence includ
ing kidnappings — has hurt plans
to revive the country’s economy.
“There is no question that
a mix of attacks, kidnappings,
bombings, etc, has had a major
effect of blocking foreign invest
ment, leading firms to drop out of
aidprojects, restricting activity to
‘safe’ or ‘safer’ areas and disrupt
ing any smooth (low of activity
while forcing massive expendi
tures of security,” he said.
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Airport
security
lincreases
By Leslie Miller
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Starting
ext week, all airline passengers
ust take off their jackets before
assing through metal detectors,
id more will be subjected to
|at-down searches and checks
r explosives, the Transporta-
Ion Security Administration an-
unced Thursday.
Screeners will advise passen-
rs of the new procedures when
ey put their carry-on bags on
ie conveyor belt, TSA spokes-
oman Yolanda Clark said.
The goal is “to fortify our
Greening procedures to detect
| ie presence of explosives car-
I ed on a person or in carry-on
Jiggage,” she said.
1 Bags checked onto planes
imst pass through machines
that can detect various kinds of
Explosives.
a But neither the walk-through
| letal detectors that passengers
] se on the way to gates nor the
| i-ray machines for carry-on bags
1 an sense plastic explosives.
Now, every passenger selected
)r secondary screening after
assing through metal detectors
fill have their carry-on items
fabjected to checks by explo
it ves trace detectors.
I Screeners also have more
iscretion to conduct pat-down
earches and check carry-on
ags for bombs.
Air Travelers Association
resident David Stempler said
ie changes are a good idea,
lough some passengers could
e upset by hand searches.
“Given the extraordinary need
r it — given the recent bombing
fthe planes in Russia, heightened
Jecurity alerts, tension leading up
the election — I think these are
ecessary evils that passengers
ave to put up with,” he said.
Two Chechen woman are sus-
lected of carrying bombs onto two
Russian planes that exploded al-
[nost simultaneously last month.
1 The Sept. 11 commission
Secommended in its final report
ihat the TSA make it a high pri
ority to improve the ability to
fetect explosives on passengers
at security checkpoints.
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