Three American contractors went missing in Iraq two days ago, said a senior security official in Baghdad.
"A
company filed a report Sunday about three of its staff going missing
two days ago. They are American contractors. We are looking into this
report," the official told CNN.
Separately,
an Iraqi security official with knowledge of the case said that two of
three missing contractors are dual Iraqi-American citizens, and that the
third is an American national.
Leonard Greene (NEW YORK DAILY NEWS) notes, "Arab news channel al-Arabiya, citing its own sources, said three missing people may have been abducted by militias." BBC News adds, "If it turns out to be a serious kidnapping, reports the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad, it would be a major blow to hopes for stability and progress in Iraq."
In other news, the US Defense Dept announced they dropped more bombs on Iraq today:
Strikes in Iraq
Rocket artillery, ground attack, attack, bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 26 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:
-- Near Albu Hayat, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed three ISIL command and control nodes.
-- Near Kisik, three strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun, an ISIL fighting position, and denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Mosul, 10 strikes struck seven separate ISIL tactical units and an ISIL-used culvert and destroyed three ISIL vehicles, 34 ISIL fighting positions, two ISIL weapons caches, three ISIL assembly areas, three ISIL bunkers, and wounded two ISIL fighters.
-- Near Qayyarah, four strikes struck an ISIL weapons manufacturing facility and an ISIL-used culvert and destroyed an ISIL crude oil heater and denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Ramadi, five strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL artillery piece, five ISIL fighting positions, two ISIL vehicles, an ISIL bunker, and an ISIL heavy machine gun, suppressed an ISIL staging area, and cratered an ISIL-used road.
-- Near Sultan Abdallah, one strike suppressed an ISIL mortar position.
-- Near Tal Afar, one strike struck an ISIL-used bridge.
Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target.
Meanwhile, we said Basra was a hot spot.
Repeatedly.
Rami
AP reports that the Baghdad-based government has announced it will be sending forces to Basra.
The local government has only been asking for these forces for over two weeks now.
Meanwhile, the Baghdad-based government and the White House continue to look the other way as Sunnis remain persecuted.
-
This is how it looks like when militias enter Sunni villages. Beating an old man asking "Where are your sons?"
#Iraq
Muhanad Seloom
I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name
The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4497 (plus 10 in Operation Inherent Resolve which includes at least 1 Iraq War fatality).
Live cartooning tonight's Democratic Party debate? Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The Closing Argument," "We Survived," "Boy Scout" and "
New content at Third:
