Word: ganges
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...other nations? His gay Austrian character on “Da Ali G Show,” Bruno, is a ridiculous, hyper-flamboyant character, but he isn’t an indictment of all of Austria, just as Ali G and his “Staines massive” gang don’t represent the entirety of England...
...Taie, a reservist assigned to the Provincial Reconstruction Team Baghdad, has been "unaccounted for" since Oct. 23 at 4:30 p.m.; he is currently listed as "duty status whereabouts unknown." Family members of the 41-year-old Iraqi-American from Ann Arbor, Mich., say he was nabbed by a gang claiming to be from the Mahdi Army while he was on an unauthorized trip outside the fortified Green Zone to visit his wife in Baghdad...
...Qanbar made contact with an intermediary trusted by the kidnappers. In a secret location in Baghdad, the mediator met with members of the group who showed him a grainy video on a cell phone screen of a man they claimed was al-Taie, beaten up and bloody. Then the gang demanded $250,000 from the soldier's family to secure his release. Something didn't seem right, says Qanbar. "The number is too low for a U.S. soldier," he told TIME. It made him wonder if his nephew was even alive...
Waddah also learned a little bit about the "emir," or leader of the criminal gang. The guards described him as a bold and brazen criminal who masterminded the kidnapping of many high-value targets: rich businessmen, government officials, even a tribal sheik. The gang leader had been a senior official in Saddam's dreaded intelligence service, the Mukhabarat. The emir was also an expert in torture, able to extract information from the most stubborn captives. But he rarely took part in the interrogations anymore; in fact, he only occasionally visited the house. While he concentrated on other, unspecified business interests...
...stops? The U.S. official says the first switch was probably a handoff to a second group, which would hold him and claim the ransom. "It's not unusual for more than one group to be involved," says the official. "As in any organized business, there's specialization. Some gangs do the snatching and then pass on their captive, for a fee, to another gang." The money changing hands at this stage may be no more than a few hundred dollars; the muffled conversation Waddah heard at the first house may have been a quick round of bargaining...