Five Fingers Sent To U.S. Authorities Are From Hostages
BAGHDAD — U.S. authorities in Baghdad have received five severed fingers belonging to four Americans and an Austrian who were taken hostage more than a year ago in Iraq, officials here said today.
The FBI is investigating the grisly development, and the families of the five kidnapped contractors have been notified, American officials said on condition of anonymity because only Washington officials are permitted to publicly discuss the matter.
Authorities have confirmed that the fingers belonged to hostages Jonathan Cote, of Gainesville, Fla., Joshua Munns, of Redding, Calif., Paul Reuben, of Buffalo, Minn., Bert Nussbaumer of Vienna, Austria, and Ronald J. Withrow, of Lubbock, Texas.
The first four men were security contractors with Kuwait-based Crescent Security and were captured in a brazen ambush of their 43-truck supply convoy in the southern Iraqi town of Safwan, near the Kuwaiti border, on Nov. 16, 2006.
There was no word today on a fifth contractor who was seized with them, John Young, of Kansas City. Contrary to Austrian news reports, none of the fingers belonged to him, authorities said.
The Crescent contractors appeared in two hostage videos released in December 2006 and January 2007 in which they pleaded for the United States to withdraw troops from Iraq and to free all Iraqi prisoners. In the videos, they appeared in good condition and stated that they were being treated well.
Withrow, a computer specialist who worked for JPI Worldwide, was kidnapped separately at a phony checkpoint near the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Jan. 5, 2007. The bodies of his Iraqi translator and driver were discovered the next day, but there had been no news of Withrow until today’s development. JPI is a Las Vegas-based company that provides Internet and technoological support in remote or war-torn areas around the globe, according to the company’s Web site.
U.S. officials in Baghdad would not say how or where the severed fingers were received, citing the ongoing investigation.
(McClatchey)
Nods to Jawa.
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I have a finger for the hostage taking jihadi pricks.
March 12th, 2008 at 2:13 pmJesus …
March 12th, 2008 at 2:16 pmGIVE EM 24 HOURS!!!
March 12th, 2008 at 2:29 pmWhen will the attitude of no more “Mr nice guy” return to the United States ?
March 12th, 2008 at 4:31 pmWhen we capture some of these buzzard terrorist we should send thier heads back to thier families, then go after the remaining family members!!!! Flipping
We’ll never win this war till we make it more painful for them to continue than to give it up!!!!
March 12th, 2008 at 7:27 pmsounds like mafia tactics, perhaps we should stop calling them terrorrists and just call them criminals, anarchists or just f-ing scum.
March 12th, 2008 at 7:28 pmWell, a finger shows they’re alive and since they’re being held for money they’ll keep them alive because they’re worthless to them if they’re dead. It’s a dam messy shame.
March 12th, 2008 at 9:31 pmWell…I say let’s catch Haji and a few of his friends and remove some…let’s say…toes or other various body parts and then mail them out to the Iranian, Syrian, Saudi Arabian, Afghani, and Yemeni embassies. Then make the statement to the entire world that THIS IGNORANT BRUTALITY STOPS RIGHT NOW OR MORE PARTS FROM MORE JIHADISTS WILL BE MAILED OUT SOON!
It is time…high time…that we responded, to this insanity and the perpetrators or pervaders of said insanity, with a ferocity that brings this mess to an end.
“Preace through superior firepower” was a mantra of the Ronald Reagan era and it should be resurrected for the time in which we are living.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:42 am