Two German engineers seized in northern Iraq

Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms today seized two German engineers working at a detergent plant near the northern Iraqi town of Beiji, police said.

No further details were available, police Captain Laith Hamid said checkpoints had been set up throughout the area about 155 miles north of Baghdad in an effort to find them.

In Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff said the two were young men from Leipzig but did not give their names.

“Statements about the kidnappings have been confirmed, they are two young men from Leipzig, which gives me particular cause for concern,” Thomas de Maiziere said in Berlin.

He offered no further information.

The first German kidnapped in Iraq was Susanne Osthoff, an aid worker and archaeologist who disappeared with her Iraqi driver in northern Iraq on November 25. Her release was announced on December 18.

Brazilian engineer Joao Jose Vasconcelos Jr., who was employed at Beiji’s power station, was kidnapped in the city last January and his whereabouts remain unknown.

There was also still no word on the fate of kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll, who was kidnapped in Baghdad on January 7. Iraqi officials said joint US-Iraqi operations were carried out recently to free her, but they provided no details. More than 250 foreigners have been taken hostage in Iraq, either by insurgents or gangs, since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam.

At least 39 have been killed.