Iraq's prime minister says 3 Americans who disappeared in Baghdad 'just went missing', doubts Iranian involvement

Thomson Reuters

Iraqi Prime Minister Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Thursday that three Americans who disappeared in Iraq last week "just went missing," and he very much doubted any Iranian involvement.

Asked by a pool reporter at the start of a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Davos if he thought there was an Iranian link to their disappearance, Abadi said:

"I don't know about that. I doubt it very much. We don't know if they have been kidnapped ... They just went missing."

Iraqi intelligence and U.S. government sources said on Tuesday the three U.S. citizens were kidnapped and were being held by an Iranian-backed Shi'ite militia.

Unknown gunmen seized the three on Friday from a private residence in the southeastern Dora district of Baghdad, Iraqi officials say. They are the first Americans to be abducted in Iraq since the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011.

The U.S. sources said Washington had no reason to believe Tehran was involved in the kidnapping and did not believe the trio were being held in Iran, which borders Iraq.

Some analysts believe the kidnappings were meant to embarrass and weaken Abadi, who is trying to balance Iraq's relations with rival powers Iran and the United States.

Thomson Reuters

Hostility between Tehran and Washington has eased with the lifting of crippling economic sanctions against Iran in return for compliance with a deal to curb its nuclear ambitions and a prisoner swap.

The three men are employed by a small company that is doing work for General Dynamics Corp GD.N, under a larger contract with the U.S. Army, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Kerry did not comment on the missing men.

On Sunday, the U.S. State Department said it was working with Iraqi authorities to locate the three, without confirming they had been kidnapped. On Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said "the picture is becoming a little bit more clear in terms of what might have happened," but provided no details.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Richard Balmforth)