Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies

Mystery shrouds hostage's Iraq trip

Officials say Nicholas Berg, who was beheaded on video, was not in U.S. custody, but his family disputes that.

BAGHDAD - U.S. authorities said Wednesday that a young American who was beheaded by militants had been warned by the FBI to leave Iraq and was offered a plane ride to safety at a time when a new wave of violence spread across the country, making road travel extremely dangerous.

Mystery surrounded not only Nicholas Berg's disappearance but also why he had been held by Iraqi police for about two weeks and questioned by FBI agents three times. Berg's family disputed U.S. officials' claims that Berg was never in U.S. custody.

"The Iraqi police do not tell the FBI what to do, the FBI tells the Iraqi police what to do. Who do they think they're kidding?" Berg's father, Michael, told the Associated Press from his home in West Chester, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb.

Berg was last in contact with U.S. officials in Baghdad on April 10, and his body was found Saturday in Baghdad. Staff members at the $30-a-night Fanar Hotel in Baghdad told the AP that Berg stayed there for several days until April 10.

Two e-mails sent by Berg to his family and friends show the 26-year-old telecommunications expert traveled widely and unguarded throughout Iraq - an unsafe practice rarely done by Westerners.

The FBI warned Berg shortly before his disappearance that Iraq was too volatile a place for unprotected American civilians but he turned down a State Department offer to fly him home, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Michael Berg said his son refused a U.S. offer in early April to board an outbound charter jet because he believed travel to the airport was too dangerous.

According to the State Department, Berg told an American diplomat in Baghdad that he preferred to travel on his own to Kuwait.

His family said Berg had already intended to leave the country March 30 but that his detention prevented him from doing so.

Berg first worked in Iraq in December and January and returned in March. He was inspecting communications facilities, some of which were destroyed in the war or by looters.

During his time in Iraq, he struggled with the Arabic language and worked at night on a tower in Abu Ghraib, a site of repeated attacks on U.S. convoys and the location of the notorious prison where U.S. soldiers abused Iraqi inmates.

Michael Berg told the AP that Nicholas' paternal aunt, now dead, married an Iraqi man named Mudafer, who became close to Nicholas. In one of the e-mails, Nicholas Berg describes going to the northern city of Mosul, where he introduced himself to Mudafer's brother, identified as Moffak Mustaffa.

Berg notes, "My presence ... made him more concerned (about his own safety and probably mine too) than I've been the entire time I've been here."

The young man was beheaded on a video posted Tuesday on a Web site. It bore the title "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American," referring to an associate of Osama bin Laden believed to be behind a wave of suicide bombings in Iraq.

In Washington, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was likely that Zarqawi himself was "the lead perpetrator." Zarqawi, a Jordanian, is wanted in the killing of an American diplomat in Jordan in 2002 and is suspected of ordering many suicide bombings in Iraq.

U.S. spokesmen Dan Senor and Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt were quick to offer statements of condolence to his family and to draw attention to the barbarity of his death. Senor also said that "to my knowledge" Berg was not affiliated with any U.S. or coalition organization, nor was he ever in U.S. custody.

However, Senor said Iraqi police arrested Berg in Mosul on March 24 because local authorities believed he may have been involved in "suspicious activities."

Senor refused to say more, citing the sensitivity of the case. But he did confirm that the Americans were aware Berg was in custody.

"U.S. authorities were notified," he said. "The FBI visited Mr. Berg on three occasions and determined that he was not involved with any criminal or terrorist activity."

Knight Ridder Newspapers reported that Berg told friends in Iraq that Iraqi police arrested him because he had a Jewish-sounding last name and an Israeli stamp in his passport.

"They thought he was a spy," said Hugo Infante, a Chilean who works for the United Press International news service and lives at the Fanar Hotel.

Infante, 31, said Berg didn't seem particularly alarmed about his arrest and detention in Mosul.

"He wasn't mad. It was adventure for him," Infante said, a view echoed by another friend, Andrew Duke, who said Berg shook off his detention.

"Basically his attitude was it was all sort of fun, inconvenient," recalled Duke, 43, of Boulder, Colo.

Duke, who drank beer with Berg the night before he left, said Berg told him he had made a lot of money and was thinking about going sailing in Turkey. He said he thought Berg was planning to leave the country by land.

"He was looking forward to going home," Duke said.

Senor referred questions about the reason for Berg's detention to the Iraqi police. In Mosul, however, police told the AP they had no knowledge of the Berg case.

Since Iraq remains under U.S. military occupation, it seems unlikely that the Iraqi police would have held Berg, or any other American, for such a length of time without at least the tacit approval of U.S. authorities.

Berg told his family that U.S. officials took custody of him soon after his arrest and he was not allowed to make phone calls or contact a lawyer, his father said.

Kimmitt said U.S. forces kept tabs on Berg during his confinement to make sure he was being fed and properly treated because "he was an American citizen."

But the three FBI visits suggest American authorities were concerned about more than Berg's well-being. They may have had their own suspicions about what the young American was doing in Iraq.

During a briefing Wednesday, Senor confirmed that Berg had registered with the U.S. Consulate in Baghdad but insisted he "was not a U.S. government employee, he has no affiliation with the coalition and to our knowledge he has no affiliation with any Coalition Provisional Authority contractor."

However, in a Jan. 18 e-mail, Berg said his company had been announced as an approved subcontractor for a broadcast consortium awarded a contract for the U.S.-controlled Iraqi Media Network. "Practically, this means we should be involved with quite a bit of tower work as part of the reconstruction, repair and new construction of the Iraqi Media Network," he wrote, referring to the network, operated by the Harris Corp. of Melbourne, as "something like NPR in the U.S."

It was unclear whether the contract was revoked.

MARCH: Nicholas Berg travels to Iraq through Jordan. He plans to return to United States on March30.

MARCH 24: Iraqi police arrest Berg in Mosul. During his detention, FBI agents interview him three times.

APRIL 6: Berg is released. U.S. officials offer to fly him home. He refuses and instead checks into a Baghdad hotel.

APRIL 9: His last contact with his family.

APRIL 10: Berg's last contact with U.S. officials in Baghdad.

SATURDAY: U.S. military discovers Berg's remains in Baghdad.

TUESDAY: Video posted on Web site shows his beheading.