Re: 1 Soldier Captured, 1 Missing

Date: April 17, 2004

"AMERICAN CAPTURED IN IRAQ
Missing GI is held as a hostage
Video shows soldier under guard, offers to release him in trade for insurgents held by U.S. occupiers

BY JOHN RILEY
STAFF WRITER; This story was supplemented with wire service reports.

April 17, 2004

Al-Jazeera television Friday released a grim videotape that appeared to show a missing American soldier held hostage by gun-toting insurgents, marking the first capture of a U.S. serviceman by hostile forces in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad last year.

The tape represented the latest agonizing chapter in a month that has been the most difficult of the U.S. occupation. About 40 foreigners have gone missing or been taken captive and 88 soldiers have died as U.S. troops battled Sunni and Shia insurgencies in Fallujah, Baghdad and the south.


The uniformed soldier, in an audible portion of the video, identified himself as Keith Maupin. Army Pfc. Keith Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, 20, is one of two soldiers listed as "whereabouts unknown" since an ambush on their fuel convoy near Baghdad on April 9.

"My name is Keith Matthew Maupin," said the man in the video. "I am a soldier from the 1st Division. I am married with a 10-month-old child. I came to liberate Iraq, but I did not come willingly because I wanted to stay with my child."

The man, dressed in Army fatigues and a floppy hat, is shown squatting on the floor, surrounded by a half-dozen masked and hooded men holding automatic rifles. He appears weary, unshaven and frightened, but displays no obvious injuries. The men make no threatening gestures toward him in the video aired Friday.

"We are keeping him to be exchanged for some of the prisoners captured by the occupation forces," one of the masked men said on the tape, the Associated Press reported. "Some of our groups managed to capture one of the American soldiers, and he is one of many others. He is being treated according to the treatment of prisoners in the Islamic religion and he is in good health."

In an additional comment reported by CNN, one of the gunmen said, "We want them to know - and the whole world to know - that when we took him in, he came out of his tank holding a white flag and he lay face down on the ground, just like other soldiers."

A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said Al-Jazeera provided a copy of the tape to the U.S. Embassy in Qatar. Military officials were reviewing the tape early Friday evening to confirm the identity of the prisoner, translate the tape and make intelligence assessments, the spokesman said.

Another soldier still missing

Maupin was serving with the Army Reserve 724th Transportation Company based in Bartonsville, Ill., when he disappeared in the April 9 ambush. The other soldier missing from the convoy, the 724th's Sgt. Elmer Krause of Greensboro, N.C., remains unaccounted for.

Mississippi truck driver Thomas Hamill, one of seven civilian contractors who also disappeared in the ambush, appeared on an earlier hostage tape. A number of foreign hostages have been released but one, an Italian contractor, was executed earlier this week.

Maupin, nicknamed "Matt," has been described by family and friends in his hometown outside Cincinnati as a high-performing student athlete who joined the Army Reserve more than a year ago and went to Iraq about five months ago.

His parents could not be reached for comment Friday, but spokesman Carl Cottrell told reporters outside the family home in Willowville, Ohio, that the man on the tape was definitely Maupin. "On behalf of his mother and the rest of his family, we'd like to say, 'Matt, we love you and we can't wait until we get to hug you again,'" Cottrell said.

A 2001 graduate of Glen Este High School, Maupin maintained a 3.5 grade point average, played wide receiver on the football team and has a younger brother in the Marines who is currently in the United States, according to a statement released by the school earlier this week.

"All of us here - the staff, the students - are extremely concerned about his well-being," principal Dennis Ashworth said in the statement. Maupin's hometown has sprouted yellow ribbons and held candlelight vigils, according to local news reports.

Three journalists released

Earlier Friday, a Syrian-Canadian aid worker with the New York City-based International Rescue Committee and three Czech journalists were freed by their captors, but two new kidnappings were reported: a man from the United Arab Emirates and a Danish businessman.

The Arab was pulled from his hotel Thursday night by gunmen disguised as police in the southern city of Basra, according to Iraqi police official Col. Khalaf al-Maliki and the hotel's owner. The man was carrying a passport from the United Arab Emirates that had U.S. travel stamps in it, leading to incorrect early reports that he was American.

The three Czechs had been missing since Sunday after checking out of their Baghdad hotel to leave for Jordan by taxi.

In a rare positive note during the bloodiest month in Iraq since the war began, U.S. military and civilian officials met Friday with leaders from Fallujah, the first known direct negotiations involving Americans since the siege of the city began April 5. Violence continued, however, as U.S. soldiers fought back after being attacked near Kufa in the south, the military said.

During the talks in Fallujah, the United States agreed to move its soldiers so residents would have direct access to the city's main hospital. Both sides agreed to continue dialogue on Saturday, said Ambassador Richard Jones, civilian head of the U.S. delegation.

This story was supplemented with wire service reports.

© 2004, Newsday, Inc. "