Three American contractors went missing in Iraq two days ago, said a senior security official in Baghdad.
“A company filed a report Sunday about three of its staff going missing two days ago. They are American contractors. We are looking into this report,” the official told CNN.
Separately, an Iraqi security official with knowledge of the case said that two of three missing contractors are dual Iraqi-American citizens, and that the third is an American national.
The men were grabbed by a group of gunmen from an apartment in Baghdad’s southeastern Dora neighborhood late Friday afternoon, the source said.
The contractors were taken away in a convoy consisting of several vehicles, said the source, who talked to CNN on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the media.
Baghdad’s Dora neighborhood is a religiously mixed one, its residents consisting of Shiite, Sunni, Christian, and others.
The U.S. State Department said it was aware of the report that American citizens are missing in Iraq.
“We are working with the full cooperation of the Iraqi authorities to locate and recover the individuals,” spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
