El Cajon is a suburb of San Diego. The Salomi family has a home there. Issa immigrated from Iraq. He is 60 years old now and speaks his first language fluently. Plus, he has cultural insight from his early life there. So he was valuable to our army as a civilian employee – a contractor.

On January 23^rd, he was lured to an area of Baghdad on the pretense of meeting relatives where he was kidnapped by a Shia terror group that split from the Mahdi Militia and is backed by Iran. Asaib al Haq (League of the Righteous) is demanding the release of their members now in U.S. custody and the prosecution of Blackwater security contractors accused of killing 17 Iraqis in Nisoor Square on September 16, 2007.

Asaib al Haq just concluded a deal to free Laith and Qais Khazali in exchange for a British contractor and they wanna do mo’ biniss.

Associated Press: In this undated image made from a video posted on a militant website, a man believed to be missing civilian contractor Issa T. Salomi is seen in front of a banner reading Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or League of the Righteous, Imam Ali regiment.

A Shiite militant group in Iraq has posted the Internet video showing an American it says it abducted and who appears to be a contractor reported missing by the U.S. military. The U.S. Department of Defense identified the missing civilian contractor as 60-year-old Issa T. Salomi and said he was last seen Jan. 23.

In the video, the man says his abductors from the League of the Righteous are demanding the release of militants and the prosecution of Blackwater security contractors accused of killing 17 Iraqis in 2007.

The reason they kidnapped Issa Salomi is because the kidnapping of Peter Moore worked out so well for them. We should not reward the enemy for using this ugly tactic.

Update, March 25^th: He’s back.

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