American, 5 Others Kidnapped in Iraq

Gunmen stormed the compound of a Saudi company in a fashionable Baghdad neighborhood Monday, seizing an American, a Nepalese and four Iraqis after a gunbattle in which a guard and one of the assailants were killed, police saidThe American, who was not identified, was the 12th U.S. citizen reported kidnapped or missing in Iraq. He was grabbed about 500 yards from the house where two Americans and a Briton were kidnapped last month. All three were beheaded. The dramatic abduction occurred two days after the decapitated body of Japanese backpacker Shosei Koda was found in western Baghdad. The al-Qaida-affiliated movement of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for his kidnapping. Elsewhere, gunmen assassinated the deputy governor of Baghdad while to the west of the capital U.S. troops clashed with Sunni insurgents in Ramadi, killing an Iraqi freelance television camera operator. American artillery pounded suspected insurgent positions in Fallujah, and residents reported fresh air and artillery attacks there late Monday. [more] and [more]

• Pictured above: US Marines of the 1st Division train in an abandoned primary school outside Fallujah, Iraq  Monday, Nov. 1, 2004. American forces are preparing for a major assault on Fallujah in an effort to restore control to a swath of Sunni Muslim towns north and west of the capital ahead of Sunni Muslim towns north and west of the capital ahead of crucial national elections due by Jan. 31. [more]
  
• Colin Powell Believes U.S. is Losing Iraq war [more]
• Vice President Dick Cheney said Friday the invasion of Iraq will go down in history, along with the war in Afghanistan, for its "brilliance" [more]
• At least 1,122 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war [more]