Reem Nafie digs into this week's brief kidnapping of four Egyptian telecom technicians in Iraq Sayed Shaaban's wife could not believe that her husband was alive and well. When he walked through the front door on Tuesday morning, she broke into hysterical tears and hugged him for several minutes. "It's really you," she cried, "you're fine, thank God." Shaaban was one of four technicians working for Servco, a subsidiary of Egypt- based Orascom Telecom Holding, who were taken hostage in Iraq on Sunday. Servco is a subcontractor for Orascom's Baghdad-based Iraqna, one of three companies licensed to build and operate mobile phone networks in Iraq. Shaaban, Hussein Ashour, Mohamed El- Saadi and Walid Ismail were all freed late Monday night. While Shaaban and El- Saadi got back to Egypt on Tuesday, Ashour and Ismail were set to come home today. All four were abducted on Sunday morning, at around 11am, from in front of their house in Baghdad. Shaaban said the kidnappers were waiting for them to leave the house, at which point they were "assaulted at gun-point, and told we had to move with them, or they would shoot us". The kidnappers had two cars; they put two technicians in each trunk, and drove them to a remote house where they spent one night in captivity. "The kidnappers treated us well; they fed us, and did not abuse us," Shaaban said. The four were asked about the nature of their work in Iraq, and if they had any relations with the US military. On Monday afternoon, the kidnappers told the four technicians that they were being moved. "They put us in the two cars again, but along the way, when my colleague and I noticed that the car had stopped, we broke out of the trunk and escaped. We then ran to the company base," Shaaban said. He later discovered that the cars had been stopped at a US checkpoint, and US forces had freed his two other colleagues, El-Saadi and Ismail. After being interrogated by the US forces, El-Saadi and Ismail were taken to the Egyptian Embassy in Baghdad. The four men had moved to Iraq late last November, having been contracted to install transmission towers around Baghdad. On Monday, prior to their release, their families in Cairo were panic-stricken. Ismail's father said he had warned his 27-year-old son "against going to Iraq, because of the unstable situation there. He went because it was a good opportunity for him, on the monetary level." When Ismail did not call on Sunday, as he did every day, the family began to worry. "He was already supposed to have been in Egypt on vacation, but his replacement was delayed, so he said he would be coming as soon as he could," Ismail's father said. In an apartment in the same Boulaq Al- Dakrour neighbourhood, Ashour's older brother Osama said that he once heard the sound of bombs going off in the background as he was speaking to his brother by phone. His brother called it part of his "everyday life in Iraq", but said "I have to stay here; it's my job." Osama lamented that his brother had never really listened to his admonitions about coming back to Egypt whatever the cost. Shaaban's wife said her husband's release "was so unexpected, [considering] the stories we had heard about the Orascom engineers who were kidnapped before. We were all worried that they would be gone for weeks." Over the past year, nearly a dozen Egyptians have been kidnapped in Iraq, including six Iraqna employees who spent several weeks in custody. The abductions appear to be part of militant efforts to disrupt Iraq's reconstruction process. All the Egyptians kidnapped in Iraq, including diplomat Mohamed Mahmoud Qutb, were eventually freed, usually after negotiations through intermediaries. This kidnapping was astoundingly brief. The hostages were released in less than two days, without ransom being paid. Shaaban and the others think it might have been because their kidnappers did not belong to a religious group; they were probably from a combination of Iraqi resistance groups and gangs, they said. Egyptian authorities seemed to be leaning towards this same theory, saying the kidnappers were obviously "not professionals". Security officials speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly on condition of anonymity said these kidnappers were not linked to the earlier abduction of the six Egyptians working for Iraqna. Orascom Chairman Naguib Sawiris told CNN that this time, the kidnappers had asked for a $500,000 ransom, but the company had not responded. "It might seem like Orascom's work in Iraq is being targeted, but that's not true. It is just a series of unfortunate random incidents," the security source said. "I am sure Orascom will continue their work in Iraq." The giant Egyptian firm is expected to continue pursuing its $100 million investment, a mobile network it has been struggling to build over the past year, despite a continuing insurgency targeting Iraqi infrastructure. Although the company has thus far reportedly built 35 mobile towers on two major highways in Baghdad, much work still needs to be done for Iraqna to maintain coverage around the capital, where mobile telecommunications are sometimes down for days at a time. Kidnappings in Iraq have been causing a serious headache for the Iraqi government. Unofficial sources estimated that up to 150 foreigners have been kidnapped so far, including two French journalists, a Briton threatened with beheading, and two Italian aid workers. Although most of the hostages are ultimately released, several have been slain. When the Weekly asked Ashour if he would go back to Iraq after his experience, he hesitated and said, "I'm safe with my family now. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, but if I do go back, it will definitely be a risk."
