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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Al-Qaeda gunning for US contractors |
| 2005-09-07 |
| Attacks on contractors working on U.S.-funded projects in August reached one of the highest levels in the past year. Insurgents killed seven contractors and injured 11 last month, according to the U.S. Project and Contracting Office in Baghdad. Sixteen more contractors were suspected or confirmed kidnapped. "August was real bad," said Karen Durham-Aguilera, director of programs in the contracting office. "We've had to stop projects because of it." August was the second most violent month since the contracting office began keeping records on the violence in September 2004. The worst was November, with nine deaths. Most of those attacked were Iraqis working on U.S.-funded projects. Of the 34 people who were killed, wounded or went missing in August, 32 were Iraqis. None was American. Iraqi contractors, who rarely have security, are more vulnerable to attack than U.S. and some foreign contractors, who generally travel in armored convoys with armed security. An important part of U.S. strategy in Iraq is to rebuild its aging infrastructure as a way of winning over Iraqis and undermining the insurgency. But insurgents are interfering with this by targeting contractors. Security costs have chewed away at the $18.4 billion appropriated by Congress last year for reconstruction in Iraq. Last year, $5 billion of that was redirected to training and equipping Iraq's security forces, a move that resulted in the cancellation of some projects and scaling back others. "Security is our biggest challenge," said Brig. Gen. William McCoy, an Army Corps of Engineers commander in Iraq. "We're losing a lot of contractors to a campaign of intimidation and terror." Most recently, an Iraqi contractor recruiting security guards for reconstruction projects in Mosul was kidnapped last week and later killed, said Lt. Col. Stanley Heath, an Army Corps of Engineers spokesman. In another incident, a supervisor for a Fallujah police station project was killed in his home on Aug. 19. The murder of the Iraqi supervisor prompted the contractor to halt construction on that and three other Fallujah police stations, Heath said. A terrorist known as Abu Bakr, who leads a splinter cell of al-Qaeda in Iraq, specializes in disrupting reconstruction and is behind many of the attacks, McCoy said. "He goes to sites, handing out workers a letter saying, 'I know where you live, and I'll kill you and your family,' " McCoy said. "He's out there kidnapping and killing these people." Despite the threat, reconstruction projects continue. The Army Corps of Engineers says more than 1,700 projects have been completed since June 2004. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #2 I hope each of these US contractors have appropriate weapons at the ready, and protective body and head gear -- at a minimum. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-09-07 18:10 |
| #1 Screw 'em. |
| Posted by: Kos 2005-09-07 15:16 |