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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Major Found in Kyrgyzstan Is 'Stable' - Kyrgyz spinning fable???

2006-09-10

Something about this story makes me think "dipsy doodle." I'm not sure what, but the smell's wrong...

A U.S. Air Force officer who went missing for three days says someone stuffed an object in her jeans pocket with a note saying it was bomb and telling her to go to a site in Bishkek, where kidnappers grabbed her, Kyrgyz authorities said Saturday.

Ah yes, Kyrgyz authorities. The very essence of probity. If you can't trust the ex-Soviet officials in the 'Stans, who CAN you trust???

They said Maj. Jill Metzger reported feeling as if she were in a trance as she followed the instructions.

U.S. officials said the 33-year-old officer was in "stable condition" after she turned up Friday night and had been moved to another American base in the region. Metzger disappeared Tuesday in Bishkek, capital of this former Soviet state in Central Asia, while shopping at the TsUM department store for souvenirs before a scheduled departure from the country on Friday. Her disappearance touched off an extensive search by Kyrgyz police and by U.S. military personnel, including 22 special agents. But no trace was found until late Friday when Metzger knocked on the door of a house in Kant, a town about 22 miles from Bishkek, and told its residents she had been abducted, Kyrgyz Deputy Interior Minister Omurbek Suvanaliyev said.

Military officials said Metzger was a newlywed and had been scheduled to travel with her husband to Jamaica for a belated 10-day honeymoon in the Caribbean. ~~(The Kyrgyz insist that)~~ Metzger told Kyrgyz police she had been abducted by three young men and a woman in a minibus and held in a rural area about 30 miles from the capital, Suvanaliyev told The Associated Press. Kemilbek Kiyazov, chief of the Chuysk regional police department, said, "Her first testimony was that when she split up with her group in the department store, someone put a hard object and a note saying it was an explosive in a back pocket of her jeans. "In the note there were also detailed instructions about where to go and what to do. Metzger says it was as if she were in a trance and fulfilling someone else's wishes."

Read the rest of the article -- US officials are telling a very different story.

Posted by:Fred

#23 I posted the Natalee girl because Jill reminds me of someone but i can't remember exactally who. she looks a little like Natalee...

Posted by: RD 2006-09-10 20:21

#22 heh lotp I guessing your right about the Major, she probably was abducted, and worse.

I wish it didn't happen at all and hope she recovers her career and private life.

Posted by: RD 2006-09-10 20:17

#21 I almost hope you guys are right.

Because if you're wrong -- if the statement by the US military that she was abducted, beaten badly, shaved and dumped by the side of the road is true -- then your snark is a slur on a woman who is serving in OUR name for OUR safety.

Pfeh.

Posted by: lotp 2006-09-10 20:09

#20

Posted by: RD 2006-09-10 19:56

#19 Or the claim of dyed hands could have been made up by the Kyrgyz.

Posted by: lotp 2006-09-10 19:39

#18 The hair dye on her own hands does make her story a wee smidgen suspect

Could have been her abductors trying to hide her skin color.

Posted by: Rob Crawford 2006-09-10 19:26

#17 I hope I am wrong, and IF I am I'll retract. But I'm getting a very strong whiff of MOONBAT.

Posted by: Besoeker 2006-09-10 18:01

#16 B your out of line on this one. Air Force will run this out to the truth. She was beten, her head shaved, probably sexually assualted, and dumped on the roadside. I know you have a distain for the officer corps but lighten up on this a bit.

Posted by: 49 Pan 2006-09-10 16:59

#15 RD - same feeling here. Julie Andrews, maybe?

Posted by: PBMcL 2006-09-10 16:24

#14 off topic a bit...

Maj. Jill Metzger sure looks familiar.. like someone else, I can't seem to place the face with the context tho...

Posted by: RD 2006-09-10 15:42

#13 yeah, yeah, yeah Besoeker. The academies turn out wussies and you're a MAN.

Seems like I've heard that one before.

Posted by: lotp 2006-09-10 13:30

#12 Military officials said Metzger was a newlywed and had been scheduled to travel with her husband to Jamaica for a belated 10-day honeymoon in the Caribbean

.....planced into a department store trance and then kidnapped by a Mexican....headed to Vegas on a Greyhound? ~~It all began back at Jack's Valley at the Academy with those 3 guys that lonely nite, I never said anything about it until now.~~

Posted by: Besoeker 2006-09-10 11:07

#11 Re-reading the article I can see that the claims about a bomb, "trance" etc. came from the Kyrgyz officials

The US officials are still saying she was abducted, found by the road with her head shaved and had been beaten badly.

Somehow I take the Kyrgyz account with a truckload of salt .... This reads to me like an attempt to discredit a truthful account of an attack on a US officer by Kyrgyz locals -- or officials. You know, "the woman's crazy!!!".

These are the same officials who demanded massive increases in "rent" for the air base there. It's not exactly a politically stable and friendly neighborhood for us and there are pro-Russia/Soviet factions in the country.

Keep that in mind as a background to claims about what happened to this officer.

Posted by: lotp 2006-09-10 09:14

#10 ...This has without question been handed over to USAF Office Of Special Investigations (USAF equivalent to Army CID or Navy NCIS), and having seen what happens whan they get suspicious, I can guarantee they will get to the bottom of this. I hope and pray that this is indeed one of the weird things that happens in that part of the world - but there are just too many off-notes in the story.

Mike

Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2006-09-10 09:13

#9 Maybe she's scamming.

But Kyrgyzstan used to be Soviet and the Soviets used a lot of psychotropic drugs in their police & KGB activities. It was a favored tactic, in fact. And Kyrgyzstan is one of the 'Stans where Putin has been trying hard to undo our recent presence. The new government is more pro-Moscow than the one that allowed us to set up an airbase there.

Reports are that she was beaten. She probably had no sleep for those 3 days, which plays havoc with the mind even if she was not drugged. Almost certainly she was gangraped - something we understandably play down, but it happens (and not just to females either). And the beatings may have risen to systematic torture.

I'm betting the USAF is taking time to sort this out before coming to conclusions.

Posted by: lotp 2006-09-10 07:45

#8 Yeesh. I wonder also.
Normaly, I'd be glad to get her back, but from the description....

Something does not add up.

Posted by: N guard 2006-09-10 06:50

#7 The truth will come out... it always does in silly stories like this.

Posted by: Armylife 2006-09-10 05:37

#6 Psychotic break?

Posted by: ST 2006-09-10 02:52

#5 The hair dye on her own hands does make her story a wee smidgen suspect, but I'm not there so I'll leave any conclusions to the local military investigators.

Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-09-10 02:48

#4 Sounds to me like she snuck off to try some local opium, went on a 3-day bender, and this is the story she came up with to cover for it.

Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2006-09-10 02:39

#3 sounds like stories that used come out of Macao during Nam.

Posted by: 3dc 2006-09-10 01:56

#2 Weirder than a snake's suspenders.

Posted by: Zenster 2006-09-10 01:41

#1 "does not compute"

Posted by: Frank G 2006-09-10 00:47

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