Haqi al-Shemary

Came across an Army Times article about Staff Sgt. Ahmed al Taie that was accompanied by a list of missing Americans. Surprised to learn yet another new name - Haqi al-Shemary. No details are known, including date of incident.

Search for Iraq-born soldier still ongoing
By John Ryan, Army Times, December 27, 2011

MISSING AMERICANS

Eleven Americans who went missing in Iraq have not been found, according to Col. Raymond Steeley, who supervised the Personnel Recovery Division there.

They are:

Staff Sgt. Ahmed Altaie
Jeffery Ake
Aban Elias
Abbas Kareem Naama
Neenus Khoshaba
Bob Hamze
Dean Sadek
Timothy Bell
Kirk Von Ackerman
Haqi al-Shemary
Hussain al-Zurufi

So, who is Haqi al-Shemary? Nothing comes up in search queries.

Also included in the article was a mention to those who went missing during the war - which I assume is prior to May 1, 2003 when President Bush announced a formal end to hostilities:

During the Iraq War, 58 Americans and foreign persons of interest were declared missing or captured in Iraq. Army officials did not say how many of them were recovered.

Current count - and still rising - is 45 on the chart of Americans Missing in Iraq. Of those 45, 19 are thought to be missing, 11 names are unknown, 3 names are known but dates of incident are not.

I guess I just don't understand why the United States government isn't more forthcoming about who exactly is missing. Why is that?

Defense Base Act

The Department of Labor Office of Workers' Compensation Programs now has sortable tables of their summaries of Defense Base Act claims, including one by Employer:

Defense Base Act Case Summary by Employer

The data below reflects the number of claims cases created under the DBA for the time period specified, sorted by Employer. [...] The columns show the different Case Types: NLT ( no lost time), LTO (lost time 3 days or less), LT4 (lost time 4 days or more), DEA (death), COP (salary continuation), OTH (other or unknown).

Employers with fewer than 7 claims are not listed. Therefor, Kirk von Ackermann and Ryan Manelick's employer, Ultra Services is not listed.

When I first started researching the Defense Base Act, there was a significant lack of information available - including basics like what the acronyms stood for. So it's nice to see the Department of Labor website is now much more easy to navigate and chock full of information.

One frustration - how many contractors and their families did not file timely Defense Base Act claims simply because they didn't know the law existed? Not just a hypothetical, it's definitely happened.

Defense Base Act Case Summary Reports
US Department of Labor
Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP)
Division of Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation (DLHWC)

Rand Michael Hultz Released

Murky information so far but all the same great news about the release of a previously unknown American hostage.

Press reports identify him so far as Randy or Rand Michael Hultz, abducted in Iraq on June 18, 2011, released to the UN in Iraq and has arrived at the US Embassy in Iraq. Brief mention in the following article of possibly two more unknown American hostages.

U.S. man released to U.N. after being held in Iraq
Detroit Free Press, March 17, 2012

Sadrist officials said Hultz was taken into the Green Zone immediately after the press conference and turned over to the United Nations mission in Iraq. U.N. spokeswoman Radhia Achouri confirmed that the man was at the mission's compound Saturday night while the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad tried to verify his identity.

He was transferred to the U.S. Embassy late Saturday, spokesman Michael McClellan said.

Even Iraqi security forces were taken aback at the announcement. A senior Iraqi security official said intelligence indicated that the Promised Day Brigade had captured an American, but did not have enough reliable information to confirm it.

The official said two other Americans who worked as contractors for security firms still are being held by militants. He did not elaborate, and spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

At one point, there was a vague reference in a news report of an abduction in the summer of 2008 but no further information was ever released. Perhaps this is related.

Also see:

Militants Free American No One Knew Was Missing
By Jack Healy, New York Times, March 17, 2012

Americans Missing in Iraq - chart is updated as new information becomes available

Television Review

Below is a link to a rather fascinating review of two new television shows that center around hostages. Fascinating because there are aspects of both stories that hit close to home.

In this case compelling stories make great television - but the fiction just scratches the surface of what in reality borders on mind blowing. Truth will always be stranger than fiction. There is so much more to the story than just the disappearance of Kirk von Ackermann and the murder of his colleague, Ryan Manelick. More than is ever likely to make it to print or screen.

Rewind TV: Homeland; Kidnap and Ransom; Melvyn Bragg on Class and Culture – review
By Andrew Anthony, The Observer, February 25, 2012

Scriptwriters the world over must have been shaking their heads with the defeated recognition of tinderbox makers who have just seen their first matchstick. It's one thing to place a character in the isolation of unique knowledge – that's an old Hitchcock trick, opening the way for all manner of paranoia-testing trials. But how much smarter to burden that character with psychotic tendencies, so that we can't be sure that what she thinks she's seeing is actually what's happening, and therefore we can't be sure of anything.

That's the intriguing predicament in which Claire Danes's Carrie Mathison places the viewer. She's a CIA agent who, as a colleague notes, "is a little intense" and, even by her own reckoning, has a problem with a "mood disorder", but who in fact is bipolar and may be in the grip of a manic episode.

If only they knew...

NCTC missing 2010 Kidnapping

One of my ongoing projects is trying to find as much information as possible for the status table of Americans Missing in Iraq.

Every so often, I have to check in with the annual Department of State Country Reports on Terrorism. The National Counterterrorism Center typically provides statistical data for the annual reports beginning more or less with 2005. The data for 2008 is (sort of) missing and the link for 2004 is bad. Still, it's a good starting place, for comparing reported kidnappings between the Country Reports and the leaked SIGACT reports.

U.S. Department of State

Country Reports on Terrorism

Index of Annual Reports - by year

The most recent Country Reports on Terrorism for 2010 from the Department of State were issued on August 18, 2011.

Terrorism Deaths, Injuries, Kidnappings of Private U.S. Citizens, 2010
Country Reports on Terrorism 2010
US Department of State
August 18, 2011

The report shows no known kidnappings in 2010 - which is surprising because an Iraqi American contractor, Issa T. Salomi, of El Cajon, California was kidnapped by Asaib Ahl al-Haq, an Iranian backed insurgent group in Baghdad on January 23, 2010. Salomi was released in exchange for four militants in Iraqi detention on March 25, 2010.

Salomi was reported to be an 'Army civilian employee' by the Department of Defense. In theory, that should make him eligible for inclusion in the data, unless Asaib Ahl al-Haq is not classified as a Terrorist organization. Which I would have thought they were given that they kidnap people and then make political demands. I must be missing something here.

That's not the only oddity in all of this - in an article about Salomi's kidnapping, Officials confirm kidnapping of U.S. contractor in Iraq, authors Ernesto Londoño and Leila Fadel wrote:

The abduction of contractor Issa T. Salomi, 60, of El Cajon, Calif., marks the first reported kidnapping of an American in Iraq since the summer of 2008. [emphasis mine]

But as of yet, I have not found one single reported kidnapping of an American in Iraq in 2008, anywhere.


Country Reports on Terrorism for 2008 is missing the data page for Terrorism Deaths, Injuries, Kidnappings of Private US Citizens. A pie chart in the 2008 Report on Terrorism at the National Counterterrorism Center shows only 4 kidnappings for that year - 3 in Afghanistan and 1 in Panama.

I like my data neat, clean, and tidy. And here I have 2 years of Kidnapping Reports from the National Counterterrorism Center that both fail and 1 more a little suspect.

It's little details like this that make me worry I've stumbled on some sort of Cuckoo's Egg. If you don't know the story, it's the discovery of a real life hacker who was selling nuclear secrets to the KGB. He was eventually caught, and all because of a 75 cent accounting error.

Tidy data does matter.

Related Reading

Militant Iraqi group releases American hostage

By Leila Fadel, Washington Post, March 28, 2010

Officials confirm kidnapping of U.S. contractor in Iraq
By Ernesto Londoño and Leila Fadel, Washington Post, February 6, 2010

Remains of Al Taie Recovered

From Marcie Hascall Clark of The Defense Base Act Compensation Blog comes two news stories about service members missing in Iraq - Staff Sgt. Ahmed al-Taie and Major Troy Gilbert.

Army IDs remains of last missing soldier in Iraq
By Lara Jakes, Associated Press, WRAL, February 26, 2012

The U.S military announced Sunday that it has recovered the remains of the last American service member who was unaccounted for in Iraq, an Army interpreter seized by gunmen after sneaking off base to visit his Iraqi wife in Baghdad during the height of the insurgency.

The remains of Staff Sgt. Ahmed al-Taie, who was 41 when militiamen seized him on Oct. 23, 2006, were positively identified at the military's mortuary in Dover, Del., the Army said in a statement released Sunday. Army officials said they had no further details about the circumstances surrounding his death or the discovery of his remains.

More details in the article including the information that the remains were received at Dover on February 22. My sincere condolences to al-Taie's family and friends.

In a television interview, family of Major Troy Gilbert reveal the Pentagon will resume searching for his remains. Gilbert was killed when his jet crashed in 2006. His body was taken by insurgents before it could be recovered by US personnel.

Pentagon will reopen search for missing airman in Iraq
By Jim Douglas, WFAA, February 24, 2012

The family of a Texas pilot killed in Iraq says their prayers have been answered Friday.

They've received formal assurance that the Pentagon has reconsidered the case of Major Troy Gilbert and will reopen the search for his remains.

Related

Americans Missing in Iraq as of February 26, 2012

Rescuing Hostages

An article on how rescue missions have been shaped by the last decade of experience in Iraq. Includes quotes from Roy Hallums who was held for almost a year before being rescued. From what I can tell, only a few publications seem to have picked up the article so far. I hope it gets more attention.

War experience aids missions to save hostages
By Jason Straziuso, Associated Press, February 7, 2012

Hills - aerial photo

Photo taken from a Black Hawk helicopter of the hills that form the ridge line between Tikrit and Kirkuk. Kirk von Ackermann's vehicle was found abandoned in this isolated area and once described as the most dangerous part of the journey from Tikrit to Kirkuk.

From the photo, it looks like the road is unpaved.

Photo credit Faysal Akbik
Description: This series of low hills or mountains stood out as a landmark in a Tikrit to Kirkuk Black Hawk flight.

Left Behind in Iraq

Article on missing military personnel that contains a brief mention of Kirk von Ackermann.

Missing in action: Service members left behind
By Austin Wright, Politico, February 8, 2012

With U.S. combat troops out of Iraq and a time frame for a pullout set in Afghanistan, an ominous question looms: Who will we have left behind?

In Iraq, at least one U.S. service member is currently listed as missing, along with three defense contractors. [...]

More than five years later, Altaie’s case remains unsolved and has been turned over to the missing personnel office, along with those of three missing defense contractors: Kirk Von Ackermann, lost since 2003; Timothy Bell, lost since 2004; and Adnan al-Hilawi, lost since 2007.

Investigators spent the past two months reviewing files and crafting plans for how to proceed on each case. “It’s a lot of reading through records of various things that have happened in the past and putting that all together,” said the official at the missing personnel office. “It’s like detective work.”

And of course, there's still others missing. There's a link to the list just up there under the header for this blog.

The DPMO website cites 4 men as missing - see below. And yet, other contractors are known to still be missing. My only guess as to why others were omitted from the DPMO list is they weren't working under contract for the Department of Defense.

Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003-2010

• Staff Sgt. Ahmed K. Altaie, U.S. Army, was lost on Oct. 23, 2006 while serving in Iraq as a translator for the U.S. military
• Mr. Kirk Von Ackermann, DoD contractor, was lost on Oct. 9, 2003, while working in Forward Operating Base Pacesetter, Iraq
• Mr. Timothy E. Bell, DoD contractor, was lost on April 9, 2004, while working in Baghdad, Iraq
• Mr. Adnan al-Hilawi, DoD contractor, was lost on March 3, 2007, while working in Baghdad, Iraq

Body of Alan McMenemy delivered to embassy

Body of Iraq hostage Alan McMenemy handed over to Baghdad embassy
By Conal Urquhart, Guardian, January 20, 2012

The body of a Briton, who was taken hostage in Iraq and later killed, has been handed over to the British embassy in Baghdad, it was announced on Friday.

Alan McMenemy, a security guard from Glasgow, was abducted in 2007 as he and three colleagues were guarding a computer consultant working in the Iraqi ministry of finance. Scores of militia men disguised as police officers took over the ministry and abducted the five Britons.

Why did it take so long to return his body?

Related

Hostage Remains to be Returned
January 5, 2012

Iraq militants refuse to hand over Briton
By Ahmad al-Rubaye, AFP, July 9, 2011

Alan McMenemy of Scotland
March 21, 2010

Hostage Remains to be Returned

Breaking news this morning from the BBC in London regarding Alan McMenemy, the last of the security guards seized as hostages in 2007.

Iraqi militia offer to return Briton Alan McMenemy's body
BBC, January 5, 2012

The Iraqi militia that kidnapped five Britons in 2007 has said it will hand over the body of the last missing man, who it said was "killed in a clash".

UK authorities had suspected Alan McMenemy, 34, from Glasgow, was dead.

My sincere condolences to his friends and family.

Related

Iraq militants refuse to hand over Briton
By Ahmad al-Rubaye, AFP, July 9, 2011

Alan McMenemy of Scotland
March 21, 2010

Missing iPad Article

An iPad article includes an interview with members of the von Ackermann family.

Agony Over Missing
By Kase Wickham, The Daily, December 25, 2011

Also a short summary at The Daily blog:Americans won’t be home for Christmas because they’re still missing in Iraq
The Daily blog, December 25, 2011

Although Operation Iraqi Freedom ended last week, the families of 4 Americans still officially categorized as missing in Iraq haven’t stopped searching yet.

Unfortunately, I don't have an iPad so I don't have access to the article. I guess this means I am officially entering into the knowledge divide of the haves and the have nots.

The Unknown

Now that the War in Iraq is winding down, there's some renewed interest in those Americans still missing in Iraq.

By my own primitive accounting standards, there are 18 missing Americans - a number that includes those presumed deceased. A name - a person - remains on the list until their remains are found and identified.

The List includes 9 unknown names. That unknowingess is uncomfortable. There's something lonely about a missing person who is also unidentified. Somewhere out there, someone knows them.

An eccentric elderly man who lived in my neighborhood passed away a few months back. I just recently found out his body is still lying in a refrigerator at the morgue, waiting for family to come and claim him. Problem is, he was mentally ill. He was quiet, polite, orderly, well-spoken and totally out of touch with reality. He saw coded messages in donut displays about clandestine deliveries of Chinese missile.

It's a bit of a guess if he really has any family. Some bits and pieces of his life were true - he really was a lawyer who graduated from an Ivy League school - but a great cloud of mystery hangs over much of what he shared during a cup of coffee. But here's the thing - he knew people and he had friends. He still has friends and we're trying to figure out what to do about his body at the morgue so he doesn't end up in an unmarked grave.

It's in that same spirit, that I'd really like to find the names that belong to the Unknown missing, fitting together a broken world.

Americans Missing in Iraq - table of names last updated on August 13, 2011

Eight Years of Godot

Strange how time passes so quickly.

The first blog post I ever wrote about the strange disappearance of Kirk von Ackermann was eight years ago today. At the time, the post quoted a short blurb from a San Diego, California television station. A longer story appeared in the UK Telegraph followed by the San Francisco Chronicle - both written by Colin Freeman. Von Ackermann is still missing and is, in fact, the longest missing American in Iraq.

A little over two months after von Ackermann disappeared, his colleague, Ryan Manelick, was killed in a drive by shooting, on his birthday no less. Colin Freeman again wrote an article about Manelick's death but it took over a year before it was published.

Well, still here. Still waiting for something. Call it, Godot.

On blogging & secrecy

Over the years, a wide range of people of diverse backgrounds have been gracious enough to write to me. It's rather stunning really. I'm extremely grateful that they were willing to share their knowledge and experience with me.

Some correspondents I have had the pleasure to meet in person. Such meetings allow greater discussion and frankly, the ability to discuss things that just can't be put in writing for a variety of reasons. Reasons such as privacy, national security issues, classified information, possible slander or libel, and just protecting sources because they don't want to be identified. There's some information I still sit on years after the fact just because I feel it would unnecessarily hurt some folks feelings. I'm a bit of a softee that way.

I'll give an example.

I know who hijacked the domain registration for John Dawkins company mesopotamiagroup.com and I know why the person(s) did it. Here's the thing. The actual hijacking - who did it and why - is not important. But what is important is what the hijacking tells us about the interpersonal dynamics behind the scenes at Dawkins' predecessor logistics company, Ultra Services. Those interpersonal dynamics are vitally important to understanding the various parties different motivations. It is my own belief that understanding these motivations is the key to unlock the mystery of what happened to Kirk von Ackermann and Ryan Manelick back in 2003.

So there's one minor secret that I don't feel I can reveal in public.

There are at minimum two more secrets that I would like to reveal but can't for the various reasons listed above. I trust the different sources and have no reason to doubt the veracity of the information. Assuming it's true, it should take investigators less than 2 weeks to solve both the disappearance of Kirk von Ackermann and the murder of his colleague, Ryan Manelick. It is my understanding that investigators have access to the same information that I do but bias and a predisposition to a presumption of guilt has slightly derailed their case. One of these days a fresh set of eyes will pick up the cold case files from CID and set things back on course.

Meanwhile, bit by bit, it does seem that secrets eventually out themselves. A recent outing, of course, being the name of the counter terrorism group that Kirk von Ackermann was a member of - DO5 or the Asymmetric Threat Division.

So that's one down with more still to come. It's just a matter of time.

Hopefully, I'll still be around to link to the final story and write the closing post for this blog.

Ryan Manelick Remembered

Brief mention today of Ryan Manelick in a memorial article at the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era. According to his obituary, he had family in the area, his mother and grandfather. His remains were eventually buried there. Manelick and Kirk von Ackermann were two of Iraq's earliest civilian casualties.

9/11: A decade of personal tragedy for countians
By Jon Rutter, Lancaster Online, September 11, 2011

A total of 18 men and one woman with ties to Lancaster County have been lost as a consequence of the decade-long war on terror. [...]

A second theater of war opened in Iraq in March 2003, with the George W. Bush administration contending that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.

Lancaster County's military-related casualties began in 2003, when Ryan Manelick, a defense contractor, was shot and killed in Baghdad.

Actually, Ryan Manelick was killed about an hour outside of Baghdad, just south of Balad, in what was reported as 'Addujayal, Iraq' - likely Al Dujail - in a report issued by the US Department of State (see reference here). A map of the area is below.

The murder of Ryan Manelick remains unsolved.


View al Dujail, Iraq in a larger map

DO5 in the News

Jeffrey Kaye and Jason Leopold have a new article on the former military intelligence unit, DO5, and its work tracking Osama bin Laden over at Truthout. Kirk von Ackermann, the longest missing American in Iraq, while serving in the US Air Force, was a member of DO5. DO5 also known as the Asymmetric Threat Division, was created by the Director of Intelligence of Joint Forces Command.

New Documents Suggest DoD Watchdog Covered Up Intelligence Unit's Work Tracking 9/11 Terrorists
By Jeffrey Kaye and Jason Leopold
Truthout, September 9, 2011

Declassified powerpoint slides obtained by FOIA accompany the article. I'm a bit curious if anyone has filed an FOIA for the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) mentioned on Slide #2. (I like paper trails....)

Also worth your attention, there's an interview with author Jeffrey Kaye on theReal News.com discussing his research.



So. Still blogging. Anniversary of Kirk von Ackermann's disappearance is coming up - number 8. And still no answers.

Addendum:

Additional commentary and discussion with Jeffrey Kaye over at the Dissenter at FireDogLake.

IG Report Cover-up: Top Military Officials Hid Evidence of Pre-9/11 Al Qaeda Intelligence
By Jeffrey Kaye, September 10, 2011

In particular, Kaye's commentary is worth reading carefully. He notes, "...The falsification was meant in particular to hide the work of the 9-person unit within JFIC, known as the Asymmetrical Threats Division, or DO5 in military lingo."

The following 6 individuals were at some point associated with the Asymmetric Threat Division during the tenure of Captain Kirk von Ackermann between November 1999 into 2000 (exact end date unknown).

Commander Rear Admiral Rose LeVitre, USN
Director Captain Janice M. Dundas USN
Captain Stephen F. Santez Jr., USN
Division Head Major Oliver Wright III, US Army
Deputy Division Head John Rodriguez NCIS
Captain Kirk von Ackermann USAF

Abbas Naama

Video at MSNBC: The Road Back with Tom Brokaw

Tom Brokaw reports a story that follows three families through the war in Iraq. From 2002, before the war in Iraq, until present day, Brokaw chronicles the lives of an American soldier who fought in the war; an Iraqi family who was living under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and an Iraqi American family that returned to Iraq to rebuild their homeland.

Abbas Kareem (Tim) Naama returned to Iraq but has been missing since he was abducted in Baghdad on September 27, 2005.

There are several interviews with Lieutenant Colonel Kate Van Auken (US Army) who I am going to guess is with the Defense Prisoner of War Missing Personnel Office (DPMO). In Part 6, she is seen handling flyers, with two brief views of missing Americans, Dean Sadek and Aban Elias.

Additional commentary from the MSNBC producer:

On the road back, Americans go missing in Iraq

By Justin Balding, Dateline NBC, August 7, 2011

Abbas Naama is one of 14 Americans missing in Iraq.

Related reading

Americans Missing in Iraq
Last updated: August 13, 2011

Missing Men

I somehow missed this article when it first appeared back in May. I honestly can't figure out how I missed it. Anyway...

The author provides two new names and a different spelling for Bob Hamza, which I will add to the chart of Americans Missing in Iraq. Dates, however, continue to remain elusive.

With Withdrawal Looming, Trails Grow Cold for Americans Missing in Iraq
By Jack Healy, New York Times, May 21, 2011

The last Americans missing in Iraq followed disparate paths to an uncertain fate. They arrived from Indiana and North Carolina, Chicago and Denver. They came out of a sense of duty, in search of a paycheck, or hoping to reclaim a homeland they had fled decades earlier.

But the lives of the eight men — seven private contractors and the only American service member who remains unaccounted — are a painful fragment of the war’s legacy, a haunting piece of unfinished business that the military will leave behind when it withdraws by the end of the year. [...]

Numerically speaking, the missing Americans — Jeffrey Ake, Aban Elias, Abbas Kareem Naama, Neenus Khoshaba, Bob Hamze, Dean Sadek, Hussain al-Zurufi and Staff Sgt. Ahmed Altaie — are little more than a footnote in Iraq.

JFIC Project

Trying to put together a table of who's who at Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) and it's subordinate, Joint Forces Intelligence Command (JFIC) during the critical 1999 to 2001 time frame. It's in table format and can be found here:

USJFCOM

Most of the information in the chart has been gleaned from online biographies of retired military personnel who have entered the private sector. Some of the names and dates are from the Inspector General report. Kirk von Ackermann first reported to JFIC for Information Operations in November 1999. He was quickly attached to the asymmetric threat group, DO5.

I'll update the chart as more information becomes available.

Review of Joint Forces Intelligence Command Response to 9/11 Commission
Deputy Inspector General for Intelligence
United States Department of Defense
September 23, 2008
Declassified March 5, 2010