Two Americans were freed in by Iraqi police on Friday but a third foreigner was found dead, a day after five security guards were kidnapped when a truck convoy was hijacked at a bogus security checkpoint, Reuters reported. It was unclear if the dead man was one of two other Americans or an Austrian former soldier seized in the incident near the Kuwaiti border, an official working for the governor of Basra province said. Arab media quoted police as saying the Austrian was dead. After the operation near the border town of Safwan, the hunt was continuing in the nearby Dewajin district for the two missing men, a police source said. In an apparently unrelated incident in the town of Zubayr earlier on Friday, the British military said a British private security guard was wounded in a clash with Iraqi police. Police said two policemen and another Westerner were killed in that incident at Zubayr. British spokesman Captain Tane Dunlop said British troops killed two gunmen in a raid near Safwan although that was not related to the hunt for the five foreigners. The men were seized, along with nine Asian drivers who were quickly released, when 43 trucks and six security vehicles were halted near Safwan by men in police uniform, officials said.
