Website claims US deaths
2004-12-18 17:53
Cairo, Egypt - Iraqi militants claimed responsibility for the killing of two American contractors, showing dark images of passports and other documents in their names in a website video that surfaced on Saturday.
Joseph Wemple, a builder from Orlando, Florida, and his boss, Dale Stoffel, vice president for international development for CLI USA, died in an ambush on December 8 outside Baghdad. CLI USA is a Pennsylvania-based engineering-construction contractor.
"A group of Jihad Brigades' fighters set a trap on the Taji Camp road for members of the Pentagon and the American intelligence agency, the CIA, and those who had close ties with the American President Bush," a masked man said, sitting at a table and reading from a statement. A masked, armed man stood behind him.
"Their vehicles were attacked, and we confiscated all their weapons and possessions, including Iraqi antiquities and classified documents," the masked man said.
The authenticity of the claim or any of the items shown in the video could not be verified. The US military has a base in Taji.
Wemple, 49, had been starting work on CLI's latest project, retrofitting a facility in Taji, 20 km north of Baghdad, so it could refurbish Soviet-era armoured vehicles for the Iraqi civil-defence force. He had also helped "westernise" the Iraqi Ministry of Defence annex facility and worked on an Iraqi police training facility.
The video did not appear to show antiquities, documents or evidence of the actual killing of the two men. It included snapshots of what it said were Wemple and Stoffel posing with US troops or near military equipment.
A man, his face circled to point him out as one of the two victims, could be seen in a picture posing next to US President George W Bush.
The video quality was too poor and dark to judge whether the faces were the same as on the barely legible identification cards and passports. An employee ID card for "Shades of Green" was shown in Wemple's name.
Shades of Green is a recreation centre for US armed forces located at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
Wemple had been planning to return to Florida to be with his long-time partner, Debra Mize, and their five-year-old son, Matthew, for the holidays.
- SAPA