Gihan Shahine digs into last week's dubious abduction of six Egyptian telecom engineers in Iraq Time seems to stand still as Radwa Afifi awaits her 29-year-old husband's yet-uncertain fate. Afifi's husband -- telecom engineer Mustafa Abdel- Latif -- was one of the six Egyptian employees of the Baghdad branch of Egypt-based Orascom Telecom Holding who were taken hostage in Iraq last week. Orascom's Baghdad branch runs Iraqna, one of three companies licensed to build and operate a mobile phone network in Iraq. As Al-Ahram Weekly went to print, Egypt's Foreign Ministry had confirmed that four of the hostages had been released: technician Alaa Maqar was the first to be freed, on Monday night; on Tuesday, the company announced that technicians Tarek Abdel-Latif, Medhat Rizq and Amir Dawoud Issa had also been released. The company also issued a statement promising to continue "its strenuous efforts to free the remaining hostages as quickly as possible." Some commentators speculated that the hostages were being released as a result of the company negotiating alleged ransoms of $35,000 to $50,000 per head. Armed gunmen had grabbed Mustafa Abdel- Latif and Mahmoud Torki, another engineer, during a bold raid on their residence late on Thursday 23 September, just one day after four Egyptian technicians working for one of the company's subcontractors were abducted from a remote location near the Syrian border, along with four Iraqi engineers who were released a few days later. There were no confirmed reports regarding either the identity of the captors, or if there was any link between those who had abducted the two engineers and those who kidnapped the four technicians. Iraqi tribal leaders and clerics, who acted as mediators in attempts made to release the hostages, told Egyptian diplomats that the abductors of the four technicians reportedly belong to a tribe which is based near the Syrian border and is notorious for acts of robbery and kidnapping. Gamil Awadallah, another Iraq-based Egyptian employee who witnessed the abduction of the four technicians (now released), said he was working on a mobile tower when three cars drove into the rocky valley, and around 15 gunmen opened random fire on his co-workers. Up on the tower, Awadallah remained out of view, watching apprehensively from above, as "gunmen forced the telecom technicians to kneel on the ground, and then searched them, forced them into their cars and then drove to a remote unknown place," he said. Several unconfirmed reports claimed that the gunmen forced the hostages to provide them with details on the whereabouts of the two other engineers; other reports suggested that the security company in charge of protecting Iraqna's office buildings and the residences of its employees was allegedly involved in the abduction of the two engineers. Afifi gave those speculations credence. Late on Thursday, she said, she received a "weird call" from her husband on her mobile phone. "My husband did not talk at all, I just heard noises and then the call ended." Confused, Afifi tried to call back several times, but the mobile was shut. During Abdel-Latif's previous call, just a few hours earlier, she said, "his tone was increasingly tense. He said he and his colleagues suspected the security company in charge of their building was either inefficient or involved in the kidnapping of the company's technicians that took place a day earlier," Afifi said. In hindsight, she thinks the "weird call" she received may have been her husband trying to somehow "tell me he had been abducted". Sobbing, Afifi said her husband "always complained that conditions had become increasingly insecure in Iraq." At the same time, she wondered why her husband would be abducted "when he was actually providing a service to the Iraqi people." An equally shocked 24-year-old Asmaa Abul- So'ud told the Weekly her husband, Mahmoud Torki, had accepted the hazard-fraught, but well- compensated, offer to work in Iraq after much deliberation. Torki's colleagues attest to his professional and moral ethics, and Abul-So'ud said her husband went to Iraq six months ago only after Islamic scholars told him he "would be actually helping the Iraqi people re-build their devastated country". Her husband "had very good relations with the Iraqis", Abul-So'ud said. "It's so strange. I just hope he comes back safely because he is everything we have in life. My daughter does not stop asking about him." Many Iraqis told the Weekly they were sorry the Egyptian engineers had been abducted. "We are sad because those engineers were providing services for our country," Ahmed Ahmed told the Weekly over the phone. "Mercenaries and gangs," Ahmed said, "were committing these kinds of crimes under the banner of Iraqi resistance." According to Iraqi political analyst and academic Hoda Neaimi, Iraqis now know the difference between "real resistance groups, and insurgents who commit crimes under the banner of resistance. "The national Iraqi resistance has a clear and legitimate target: the US occupying forces," Neaimi told the Weekly. "Those who abduct civilians and ask for ransom belong to organised gangs, mercenaries and foreign infiltrators who use the security vacuum in Iraq to steal money, attain political goals and mar the image of the Iraqi resistance." Neaimi said those who abducted the Orascom employees "definitely fall into the latter category of organised crime. It is regrettable how human beings are manipulated in such cheap games." Iraqis, she said, appreciate the service Orascom engineers are providing, since it "links Iraq to the outside world, and helps the country catch up with modern technology". Kidnappings in Iraq have burgeoned into an epidemic, and are causing a serious headache for Iraq's interim government as it prepares for national elections due at the start of next year. Unofficial sources estimated that up to 100 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, including the two Americans who were beheaded by their captors this week when US officials did not respond to demands to release all female prisoners in Iraq. Although Egyptian diplomats did not confirm news that the "yet-unidentified abductors" of the Egyptian engineers demanded ransoms for their release, the Weekly received first hand information that the captors sent a message with the four released Iraqis asking for money. The released Iraqi hostages also told their colleagues that the kidnappers had inquired as to whether the company had any Israeli connections. They were released, they said, when the kidnappers realised, it was a purely Egyptian investment. Orascom media spokeswoman Dina Abu Zenada said the company "is undertaking its utmost efforts to release its employees." Until then, it was not speaking to the press in a bid to guarantee the safety of its hostages and Iraqi-based employees. Almost everyone who spoke to the Weekly denied speculations that the abductors had demanded Orascom's withdrawal from Iraq. Construction of the company's mobile network, however, seems to have come to a temporary halt as the majority of Iraqna's Egyptian staff -- an estimated 60-80 technicians and 10 engineers -- is heading home this week. One of the company's technicians in Iraq, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Weekly that the employees themselves, feeling increasingly unsafe, had demanded that they be sent home; they were, however, waiting for their colleagues to be set free. The Egyptian technician was worried that the company would terminate their contracts upon their return to Egypt. "We have toiled and risked our lives for the sake of bread," he said. "We have too many mouths to feed to remain jobless." What everybody seemed to confirm, however, was that the giant Egyptian firm would continue to pursue its reported $100 million investment, which it has been struggling to build up over the past year, despite a continuing insurgency targeting Iraqi infrastructure. The company has reportedly built 35 mobile towers on two major highways in Baghdad thus far. "The mobile services we are providing have benefited the Iraqi resistance more than anything," an Orascom technician in Iraq told the Weekly. At the same time, he said, "you can now see mobile phones in the hands of many Iraqis. It would be a great loss if we shut down." Earlier this week, presidential spokesman Ambassador Maged Abdel-Fattah said the abduction of the six telecom employees would "not affect [Egypt's] commitment towards the Iraqi people". (see p.6)
