Group Claims Responsibility for Iraq Kidnapping

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 18, 2006 — -- Four U.S. civilian security guards and an Austrian remain missing after being ambushed at a police checkpoint -- and the facts surrounding the biggest single abduction of Americans in Iraq since the war began are still unclear.

The only claim of responsibility came from an obscure group calling itself the "Mujahadeen of Jerusalem Company," whose videotaped message was later broadcast on an Iranian-run satellite news station. The group demanded the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. The tape did not show any hostages or any proof that the group was actually holding them.

Nine other contractors were released almost immediately after Thursday's abduction near the Kuwait border.

Throughout Friday evening, the Iraqi police in Basra and the office of the local governor made conflicting claims to ABC News about the other five.

The governor's office said that Iraqi forces had freed "two western hostages suspected to be Americans."

The Basra police said that the body of an Austrian security expert kidnapped with the Americans had been delivered to the Basra morgue, and that a badly wounded American hostage had been delivered with him.

Neither claim appears to be true. The case seems to have been confused with another kidnapping in the same, lethal region.

The men were seized in broad daylight when their huge convoy of more than 40 trucks was stopped at a bogus checkpoint along one of the main supply roads from Kuwait by armed men in police uniform.

The men hijacked 20 trucks and kidnapped 14 men in the space of a few minutes. The operation was described by U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell as "very well planned and orchestrated and deliberately conducted."

The convoy was operated by an American firm called Crescent Security based in Kuwait City.