U.S. citizens missing; 7 hostages freed

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two U.S. troops and seven contractors were confirmed missing Monday following an attack on a convoy west of Baghdad, a U.S. commander said, amid a wave of abductions of foreigners in Iraq.\nMore than 40 foreigners from at least 12 countries -- including a Mississippi man whose fate also was unclear -- have reportedly been kidnapped in recent days by insurgents.\nSeven Chinese men abducted by gunmen in the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, were freed late Monday after a day in captivity, the Chinese government said. A brief Foreign Ministry statement from Beijing said the men were released to an Iraqi religious group who passed them on to diplomats. \n"Their health and spirits are good," the statement said.\nMany of the reports of kidnappings have been surrounded by confusion and have not been officially confirmed.\nThe Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV station, meanwhile, reported Monday that a Russian energy company said 11 of its employees were kidnapped in Iraq during a clash in Baghdad that killed two Iraqi security guards. No other details were immediately available.\nLt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said the two American troops and seven employees of U.S. contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root were missing from a convoy, which was ambushed Friday near Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad. He refused to say whether they had been abducted.\nAlso Monday, a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council said at least 12 foreign hostages have been released. Mohsen Abdul-Hamid did not identify the nationalities of the released hostages or where they were.\nHowever, a member of his office reached later said the number of those released was unclear.\nEarlier, Muthanna Harith, spokesman for Islamic Clerics Committee, said insurgents had released nine hostages of various nationalities, including Turks and Pakistanis. It was not clear if he and Abdul-Hamid were referring to the same hostages, or if the Chinese mentioned in the Xinhua report were included in that number.\nThe nine were truck drivers for military supply convoys, which have come under heavy attack in recent days by gunmen on the western and southern outskirts of Baghdad.\nEight of the nine freed hostages appeared in a video broadcast Sunday on al-Jazeera. The eight included two Turks, three Pakistanis, a Nepalese, a Filipino and an Indian. The identity of the ninth hostage was not immediately known.\nHarith said he had no word on three Japanese civilians abducted last week.\nThe seven Chinese had entered Iraq from Jordan on Saturday and were captured the next day, China's Foreign Ministry said.\nChina hasn't contributed troops to the U.S.-led military force in Iraq and it was unclear why the seven were there. The official Xinhua News Agency described them as villagers who went to the Middle East on their own from a Chinese region with a tradition of sending migrants abroad to work. State television said they didn't work for China's government or a state company.\nIn Tokyo, optimism faded Monday that the Japanese hostages would be released quickly after a top government spokesman suggested authorities were no longer confident of their safety.\nVice President Dick Cheney, in Tokyo on a weeklong Asia tour, promised Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi the United States would "do everything we can to be of assistance."\nThe Japanese hostages -- two aid workers and a photojournalist -- were being held by a previously unknown group calling itself the "Mujahedeen Brigades," which demanded Japan pull its troops out of Iraq within three days or it would burn them alive.\nThe deadline came and went with no word on their fate.\nKoizumi has staunchly refused to consider the withdrawal, a position lauded by Cheney.\n"We wholeheartedly support the position the prime minister has taken with respect to the question of the Japanese hostages," Cheney told reporters Monday.\nAmerican Thomas Hamill, 43, a truck driver for a U.S. contractor in Iraq, was seized Friday by gunmen who attacked a fuel convoy. His captors threatened to kill him unless U.S. troops ended their assault on the city of Fallujah. The deadline passed Sunday with no word on his fate.