How To Free A Hostage

The handover of power to Iraqis has done little to curb the appalling trend. Sayed Muhammad Sayed al-Gharbawi, an Egyptian truck driver, was seized last week. Two Bulgarian truck drivers, Ivaylo Kepov and Georgi Lazov, are being held by a group loyal to al-Zarqawi. And others who have been missing longer, including Rifat, are still unaccounted for. Al-Khazraji says his source, the man who tried to buy Rifat's car, offered to lead him to his brother-in-law in exchange for $10,000 up front. "I said, 'First I need to see Rifat in the arms of his mother, and then you will get your $10,000,'" al-Khazraji says. The intermediary disappeared. Al-Khazraji later found new potential links to Rifat. In the mosques of Fallujah, young men calling themselves "the shebab [youth] group" offered to try to find Rifat. Al-Khazraji took Rifat's elderly mother to meet the shebab in a Fallujah mosque. Wrapped in a black aba and white head scarf, she stood there weeping while he kissed several members. "I said, 'Please, tell [the kidnappers] this woman of 70 has lost her child. Please help her to bring him back home,'" says al-Khazraji.

Privately, diplomats fear that Rifat could be dead. No one has reported seeing him for months, and jihadi groups haven't released any video images of him, as they have done for other hostages. "It doesn't look encouraging," says a Western diplomat in Baghdad. But al-Khazraji says he won't give up until Rifat returns home or until his body is found. Meanwhile, he is continuing his daily hunt.