Hoping Against Hope: More Americans Kidnapped in Baghdad
O’Neill: “This Shows You Where Our Foreign Policy Is Going.”
The U.S. State Department was supposedly warned. And now we’re learning, the intel they received was no idle threat. Three Americans were kidnapped last week in Baghdad, taken in broad daylight by men in military garb. Were they members of ISIS?
On the contrary.
As former Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill confirms during a recent appearance on FOX News’ America’s Newsroom with host Martha MacCullum, Iranian-backed Shia militia were clearly responsible for the kidnapping.
MacCullum: “Because of where this is almost right away it was fairly clear that this was not ISIS, correct?”
O’Neill: “Fairly clear, yes. They were taken in the neighborhood of Dora, which does have Sunni and Shia. But ISIS…if anything they’ll show up with a suicide bombing or a car bomb and claim responsibility. This is not ISIS. As quickly as they took them… These guys in six different vehicles rolled up to a spot and were in and out in minutes. They took them up to the northeast to Sadr City. That’s where the Iranian-backed Shia militia are. That’s where they always have been. We’ve been fighting them there ever since the war started in 2003.”
MacCullum: “There’s word the State Department had some indication that this is the kind of thing they’d want to pull off right now?”
O’Neill: “There was a source that said an Iranian-backed militia wanted to grab an American or an American contractor. I wouldn’t recommend any Americans going over there right now—certainly not leaving the embassy. We’ve heard different reports that it’s three men…two men and a women. They were invited to an apartment by their interpreter, which right there is pretty sketchy, and then they were taken across the street to a different apartment, known to be a brothel or a place with a lot of alcohol, illicit stuff going on. That’s where these people were grabbed.”
MacCullum: “What about Iran’s role in this? They just let these other hostages go. Do we not, because of this deal, not have any leverage? Supposedly we have closer communications with them.”
O’Neill: “We have better communication just because we started negotiating with them. They have every bit of leverage. They’re getting everything that they want. One of our responses is ‘We were hoping they wouldn’t grab more of our people because of what we just did.’ We’re going to hope against the Iranians…the biggest state sponsor of terrorism around the world? This shows you where our foreign policy is going.”