The US government is aware of reports that three US citizens have gone missing in Iraq and is working with Iraqi authorities to find them, a US State Department official says.
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Scott Bolz, a spokesman for the US Embassy in the Iraqi capital, has confirmed “several” Americans are missing.
Separately, an Iraqi security official with knowledge of the case said that two of three missing contractors are dual Iraqi-American citizens, and that the third is an American national.
Iraqi media reports said the Americans went missing in south Baghdad on their way to Baghdad International Airport.
The Americans are missing from the Iraqi capital, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad told the Associated Press.
“Due to privacy considerations, I have nothing further”.
A senior security official in Baghdad told CNN that they may be U.S. contractors.
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The reported kidnapping comes at a time of increased tensions between the predominantly Shia militias of southern Iraq and US-backed Saudi Arabia, following the latter’s execution of prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. In that paper, for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Smyth wrote that armed groups loyal to Iran could soon change their focus from fighting jihadists like the Islamic State to possibly disrupting USA or regional allies interests in the Middle East and globally..
