Report: Missing US soldier married Iraqi
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-10-31 06:50
NEW YORK: A US Army translator missing after being kidnapped in Iraq had
broken military rules to marry an Iraqi woman and was visiting her when he was
abducted, according to people who claim to be relatives of the wife.
According to a report in Monday's editions of The New York Times, the
relatives said that the soldier, previously unidentified by the US Government,
is Ahmed Qusai al-Taei, a 41-year-old Iraqi-American. The family did not know he
was a soldier until after the kidnapping, the relatives said.
Taei married a 26-year-old college student, Israa Abdul-Satar, three months
ago, the family said. They showed visitors photographs of the couple's wedding
and honeymoon, the newspaper reported.
The relatives said members of the Shi'ite Mahdi Army militia came to the
wife's home on October 23 and dragged Taei into their car.
"They were saying, 'He's an American journalist," said a woman who claimed
she was the soldier's mother-in-law and asked that she be identified only by her
nickname, Um Omar, because of fear of reprisals. "We were saying, 'No, he's an
Iraqi."
Ahmed Abdul-Satar, who said he was the soldier's brother-in-law, recounted a
frantic scene from the kidnapping, with the women of the family screaming and
begging the gunmen not to take Taei.
The military's fraternization policies prohibit active duty personnel
from marrying local civilians, military spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Josslyn
Aberle told the newspaper. Privacy rules prevented her from giving any details
about the missing soldier, she said.
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