April 14, 2004
By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Russia said Wednesday it would begin evacuating hundreds of workers from Iraq ) after a series of kidnappings in which at least 22 foreigners are held captive and four unidentified bodies were discovered in a shallow grave west of Baghdad.

A State Department official on Tuesday confirmed the discovery of the bodies, but the Halliburton company said it did not know whether the dead were its employees missing since an assault on their convoy outside Baghdad last week. It was unclear when the bodies were found.

Initial reports said the bodies were mutilated, but those reports were not confirmed, the official said.

NBC News reported the bodies were found between Fallujah and Abu Ghraib, scene of the convoy attack, after an Iraqi led U.S. officials there.

Two U.S. soldiers and seven employees of Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root Inc. have been missing since their convoy was attacked Friday on the main highway between the district of Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad.

The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations planned seven flights from Moscow to Baghdad and Kuwait starting Thursday to evacuate 553 Russians and 263 residents from former Soviet republics who have been working in Iraq, spokesman Viktor Beltsov said.

Three Russian and five Ukrainian employees of a Russian energy company were kidnapped by masked gunmen who broke into their Baghdad house on Monday but release unharmed the next day.

The Philippines — a staunch U.S. ally — also said Wednesday that it was considering whether to withdraw its nearly 100 troops from Iraq.

"The decision on whether or not to withdraw our peacekeeping forces will depend on the security situation in Iraq in the days to come," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said.

The Philippine military and police contingent in central Iraq has suffered no fatalities, but a civilian driver for military supply trucks was released unharmed earlier this week after he was abducted along with dozens of foreigners.

The roads west of Baghdad have been a site of many of the kidnappings since fighting broke out across Iraq this month. Some abductions have also occurred in the south.

The most recent reported abductions were of four Italian security guards working for a U.S.-based company and a French TV journalist.

Also among the captives are three Japanese whose kidnappers threatened to burn them alive if Tokyo didn't withdraw its troops.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a strong supporter of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, ruled out a withdrawal of troops based in the southern city of Nasiriyah.

"The peace mission of the Italian soldiers in Iraq, in line with the international commitments that have been taken on, is absolutely not in question," he said.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Italy will work with Iran and other Islamic countries to try to win the release of his countrymen.

A U.S. spokesman said 40 foreigners from 12 countries were currently held by kidnappers — though an Associated Press count put the number at 22.

One of the seven missing employees — Thomas Hamill, a 43-year-old truck driver from Macon, Miss. — is known to have been abducted. His captors have threatened to kill and mutilate him unless U.S. troops ended their assault on Fallujah. The deadline passed Sunday with no word on his fate. Halliburton would not give the nationalities of the six others.

The French government demanded the immediate release of Alexandre Jordanov, a journalist for Capa Television in Paris, who was seized Sunday while videotaping an attack on an American military convoy.

Franck Duprat, a television editor who worked with Jordanov on an investigative television show called "The Real News," said he disappeared on the road south of Baghdad.

Three Czech journalists feared kidnapped Sunday are fine and could be released as early as Wednesday, Iraqi Minister of Culture Mofeed al-Jazaeri told Czech Television from Baghdad.

The three are believed to have been kidnapped while headed toward Jordan. They were identified as Czech Television reporter Michal Kubal and cameraman Petr Klima and Czech Radio reporter Vit Pohanka.

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AP writer George Gedda contributed to this report from Washington.

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