Navy: Four U.S. Soldiers Vanish on Boats in Gulf

June 2, 2003

LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy said Monday two small boats carrying four U.S. soldiers and at least three civilians disappeared in northern Gulf waters Sunday.

The Fifth Fleet said the two boats were heading toward the Shatt al-Arab waterway from Iraq's Mina al-Bakr oil terminal when they vanished.

The navy's Bahrain-based Maritime Liaison Office said in a statement to merchant shipping that the vessels were on their way to the Iraqi port of Faw to pick up Iraqi oil workers at the time.

The cause of the boats' disappearance was not known.

MARLO said the boats were transporting "one U.S. civilian engineer, four U.S. Army soldiers, two Kuwaiti civilian operators, and possibly one other unidentified person."

The vessels were last seen a mile north of the Mina al-Baker oil terminal.

One of the boats, the Green Star 1, is described as nine meters long with a white hull with two outboard engines.

The second, the Lady Beverly, is of similar size with a "white cigarette boat" style hull.

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