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Missing Soldier Married Iraqi

Oct-30-2006 » Filed Under: 172nd SBCT

Here is some additional information regarding the missing soldier the 172nd was looking for last week. His identity is finally confirmed.

Associated Press

NEW YORK - A U.S. 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 editions of The New York Times, the relatives said that the Soldier, previously unidentified by the U.S. 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 Shiite Mahdi Army militia came to the wife's home on Oct. 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.'" [...]


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