US hostage said killed on bloody day in Iraq

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http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr..._0_US-IRAQ.xml

(unconfirmed)

By Paul Tait and Seif Fouad

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Islamic insurgent group said on Thursday it had killed a U.S. hostage who, if the claim is confirmed, would be the first foreign captive killed in Iraq for four months and the first American in more than a year.

The reported killing came after a suicide bomber killed 30 people in an attack on a crowded bus in central Baghdad, the latest chapter in Iraq's bloody insurgency just a week before Iraqis vote in parliamentary elections.

A statement posted on a Web site often used by insurgents said the Islamic Army in Iraq killed the security consultant, identified as Ronald Schulz, because the U.S. government had not met its demands, which included freeing all Iraqi prisoners.

"War criminal (U.S. President George W.) Bush continues with his arrogance and no one has any value unless they serve his criminal interests, therefore the American security adviser pig at the Housing Ministry has been killed," the statement said.

The statement's authenticity could not be verified and no pictures or video accompanied it. The White House and the U.S. embassy in Baghdad both said they had no official confirmation of the report.

If true, Schulz, a 40-year-old electrician who had been working in Iraq before his kidnap on Tuesday, would be the first foreign hostage killed in Iraq since late July, when two Algerians were executed by their captors.

Before that, a Japanese hostage was killed in May this year and an Italian hostage in December last year. The last American hostage to die was Jack Hensley, in September 2004.

The reported killing follows a spate of foreign hostage-taking in Baghdad and came as Iraqi security forces were braced for a spike in violence ahead of the election.

The bombing on the Baghdad bus took the death toll from suicide attacks in the Iraqi capital to 66 in just three days, after a relative lull in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, suicide bombers breached security at Baghdad's police academy and killed 36 police officers and cadets.

Police said Thursday's bomber boarded the bus as it was about to leave a bus station for the southern Shi'ite city of Nassiriya and blew himself up. Television pictures showed firefighters pulling charred bodies from the wreckage. Continued ...

if this is true, then another innocent man has died in the hands of these cowards