Kidnapped GI is alive, military says

The American soldier captured by gunmen in the Iraqi capital last week remains alive as family members and others try to negotiate his release, a U.S. military official said Thursday.

U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Ahmed Qusai Taei, a 41-year-old American of Iraqi descent, was visiting his Iraqi wife and other relatives in central Baghdad on Oct. 23 when kidnappers stormed the home, handcuffed him and forced him into a vehicle at gunpoint.

The kidnappers used Taei’s cellphone to call his family, the official said, and talks were continuing.

“There is ongoing dialogue being done at different levels at this time,” Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said in Baghdad.

The kidnapping sparked a military crackdown involving 2,000 U.S. and 1,000 Iraqi forces in Shiite Muslim sections of Baghdad where officials suspect he may be held. U.S.-led forces launched 37 missions to find Taei, resulting in the death of one American soldier, the wounding of eight and the capture of 32 suspects.

“We do have credible intelligence that indicates who might be associated with this kidnapping,” Caldwell said, declining to provide details. “We are vigorously pursuing every lead. At this time, we believe the ones who kidnapped Ahmed currently still have him. We are using all our assets at our disposal to find him.”

Taei left Iraq when he was young, spending several years in the Persian Gulf region before moving to the U.S. as a teenager. He lived mostly in the Detroit area, but also resided in Louisiana for some time.

His parents, residents of Ann Arbor, Mich., “are totally devastated,” said Entifadh Qanbar, an Iraqi government official who is Taei’s uncle.

“He’s a very nice guy, a lot of fun and has a great heart,” Qanbar said. “He plays the keyboard very well. He’s very artistic and very creative and very hard-working.”

Though Taei spent much of his life abroad, he retained perfect Iraqi-accented Arabic “as if he had never left Iraq,” Qanbar said.

He joined the Army Reserve in December 2004, was called to duty in August 2005 and deployed to Iraq in November 2005. Before he was called to duty, he married an Iraqi woman, Caldwell said.

Taei was last spotted by Americans in Baghdad’s heavily protected Green Zone about 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 23, the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. The military listed him as “duty status whereabouts unknown” about 7:30 p.m. on the day he disappeared and started the massive dragnet through Shiite neighborhoods of the capital.

Each day gunmen abduct dozens of Iraqis. Often the captives are victims of sectarian or political violence. They are bound, tortured and shot dead, their bodies dumped into drainage canals and desolate lots.

But sometimes kidnapping victims are held for ransom by criminal gangs. Negotiations between the family and kidnappers can drag on for weeks.

Qanbar and U.S. officials would not say whether they had received a ransom demand.

daragahi@latimes.com