Iraqi forces arrest 200 in hostage raids

Iraqi forces searching for four Americans and an Austrian who were kidnapped in southern Iraq detained about 200 suspected insurgents, police said today.

Police carrying machine guns and wearing fatigues and black face masks showed off their suspects by inviting the media to a police station where their prisoners were blindfolded and forced to sit on the ground outside. One of the suspects was a disabled man who had lost both legs at the knee and was sitting in a wheelchair.

The men were detained late Saturday night by Iraqi soldiers who raided several areas north of Basra. Basra is where most of the 7,200 British soldiers in Iraq are based.

Al-Musawi said none of the hostages had been found during the raids.

The four American security guards and their Austrian co-worker have been missing since Thursday when a large convoy of trucks being escorted by their Crescent Security Group company was hijacked on a highway near Safwan, a largely Sunni Arab city of 200,000 people on the Kuwait border.

Suspected militiamen dressed in Iraqi police uniforms ambushed the convoy, taking 19 of its trucks and 14 hostages: the five security guards and nine foreign truck drivers who were later released.

Officials at Crescent Security Group refused to comment about the five hostages on Saturday, but the company issued a statement on its website saying they remain unaccounted for.

Islamic Companies, a previously unknown group, claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, according to an Iranian-run Arabic-language satellite news station. It said the group released a videotaped message saying it was holding the five men and demanded the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq and the release of all prisoners being held there.

British, US and Iraqi forces have all spent time searching for the five captives.

US Embassy spokesman Michael McClellan said today that US officials believe the five hostages are still being held by their captors.