4 Troops Killed; Fate of Hostages Unknown

Four American soldiers were killed in attacks Saturday, as a deadline passed without word on the fate of four kidnapped foreign humanitarian activists.

Militants had threatened to kill the members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams organization Saturday unless all prisoners in U.S. and Iraqi government custody were released.

The hostages -- an American, a Briton and two Canadians -- were abducted Nov. 26 by the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, a previously unknown militant group.

In Tikrit, the body of an Egyptian man was found Saturday, one day after he was kidnapped. Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency identified the victim as Ibrahim Sayid Hilali, and said he had worked as an interpreter at the U.S. military base in the area.

The U.S. casualties came in three attacks in the Baghdad area, the military announced. Two soldiers were killed by small arms fire in the Yusufiya district south of the capital. A third soldier was shot in northwest Baghdad and the other died in predominantly Sunni Arab Adhamiya, a northwest district, when his patrol struck a roadside bomb.

The names of all four soldiers were being withheld until their families could be notified, the military said.

Also Saturday, officials announced that one member of the U.S. military was killed and 11 were wounded Friday when they were attacked by a suicide car bomber near the town of Abu Ghraib just west of Baghdad.

And at a base near Fallouja, a Marine on guard duty apparently died of natural causes Thursday, the military said Saturday. The guard, assigned to the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, died of a suspected heart attack.

The Iraqi Ministry of Interior said it had received no word on the status of Norman Kember, 74, of London; Tom Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va.; and Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32.

The four activists originally were threatened with execution on Thursday, but the militants moved the deadline to Saturday. Several prominent Sunni Muslim leaders have appealed for their release, many of them citing the strong antiwar stance of Christian Peacemaking Teams and the group’s vocal opposition to the U.S. presence in Iraq.

Although thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped for ransom by criminal gangs since the U.S.-led invasion toppled former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003, the abduction of foreigners for political gain largely had subsided in recent months until the latest series of kidnappings.

At least eight foreigners have been kidnapped in the last three weeks, including a French engineer and a German archeologist.