College student, ex-Marine among hostages in Iraq

[babylonsister]

College student, ex-Marine among hostages in Iraq

* Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008



WASHINGTON — The mother of an American hostage whose finger was among five recently delivered to U.S. officials in Iraq said she only learned in January that her son had been taken captive nearly a year earlier.

Barbara Alexander, of Roaring Springs, Texas, said that she first learned her son, Ronald J. Withrow, from whom she was estranged, was missing on Jan. 2 this year when an FBI agent contacted her.

She learned about the finger about a week later, she said.

Withrow, a computer specialist who worked for JPI Worldwide, a Las Vegas based firm that provides computer services in conflict zones, was kidnapped at a phony checkpoint near the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Jan. 5, 2007, according to news reports. The bodies of his Iraqi translator and driver were discovered the next day.

The four other fingers were identified as belonging to security contractors _ three Americans and an Austrian _ who were kidnapped in a brazen ambush of their 43-truck supply convoy on Nov. 16, 2006.

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/30228.html

[MichaelHarris]

1. Hell No!

can't be right, John McCain said you could walk down any street in Iraq.