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Germans cash cows for Iraqi kidnappers?

By STEFAN NICOLA, UPI Germany Correspondent

KEHL AM RHEIN, Germany, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Germans in Iraq may be targeted as cash cows after two men from Leipzig were kidnapped in the Sunni triangle, the second abduction of Germans in just a few weeks.

"It looks like Germany is seen as a country that pays," Karl-Heinz Kamp, security expert at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftug, a think tank with close ties to Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, told United Press International in a telephone interview Wednesday. "The latest kidnapping has been professionally executed. I don't think there is an extremist background. The abductors likely asked themselves: Where can we make some fast money?"

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The men have been identified by a German TV station as René Bräunlich and Thomas Nitzschke. They were kidnapped on their way to work near the Iraqi city of Baiji at gunpoint by some six individuals in Iraq military uniforms in two vehicles, according to a report in Deutsche Welle, which cites information from an Iraqi police chief.

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Nothing unusual, it seems, as some 200 foreigners have been abducted in Iraq, most of who have been released. Germans were left alone until Susanne Osthoff, a German archaeologist and aid worker from Bavaria, was kidnapped roughly two months ago.

Osthoff's Dec. 18 release blew up some dust as the German media speculated about a multimillion-dollar ransom paid to the abductors. The payment may have encouraged criminal gangs to single out Germans "to make fast and easy dollars," Rolf Tophoven, one of Germany's leading terrorism experts, told Wednesday's Thueringer Allgemeine newspaper.

The government has so far denied it paid any money, but terrorism experts are sure it did.

Asked whether paying ransom for Osthoff caused the latest abduction, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: "Paying ransom didn't, but media reports about it did."

Kamp said criticizing the government was unfair.

"What kind of a choice did it have?" he asked.

The attempt to swiftly free Osthoff received prominent backing in politics, with former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder -- banking on his image of a tough anti-war campaigner -- addressing the abductors via al-Jazeera television.

It remains to be seen whether the ongoing controversy over German intelligence involvement in the U.S.-led Iraq war has hurt the standing of Germans in Iraq.

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Earlier this month, media reports said two German spies tipped off U.S. intelligence on a location in Baghdad where former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein dined. The related bombing killed 12 civilians. The German government denied giving any target data.

But the gang that took Osthoff likely only cared for ransom money, and so does the group that kidnapped the men from Leipzig, observers say.

The men worked at a detergent plant inside an industrial complex surrounding Iraq's biggest oil refinery in Baiji, a city roughly 110 miles north of Baghdad in the Sunni triangle, where opposition to the new Iraqi government remains vicious.

Employed by German manufacturing and engineering company Cryotec Anlagenbau, they arrived in Iraq last Friday for a 5-day work stint. On Wednesday in the early morning hours, they were snatched when arriving at their workplace.

It seems a third German was able to escape because he looked and talked like an Iraqi, according to media reports.

The German company's director, Peter Bienert, appealed for the release of his colleagues in an interview with the regional Leigziger Volkszeitung newspaper.

"What I want to see is our colleagues return quickly and in good health," he said.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Wednesday said Berlin so far hadn't established any contact to the kidnappers, nor had a claim been issued, he added.

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On Tuesday, Steinmeier set up a crisis task force similar to the one that worked on Osthoff's release last month.

Baiji is in the Salahaddin province, a part of the Sunni triangle. U.S. forces suffer frequent roadside bomb attacks there, and its oil refinery, Iraq's largest, attracts several criminal gangs and rebels.

The German foreign ministry has issued a travel warning, saying German citizens are advised not to visit Iraq. Those already in the country -- roughly 100 Germans -- should leave as soon as possible, it said.

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