17 September 2004	Friday	01 Shaban 1425

BAGHDAD, Sept 16: Two Americans and a Briton were kidnapped at gunpoint from their smart Baghdad home on Thursday, as the two main powers behind last year's controversial invasion became the latest victims in a five-month hostage crisis.

The new abductions - compounded by the kidnapping of a Syrian driver and suspicions in Stockholm that three Swedish citizens are hostages - came as UN chief Kofi Annan denounced the US-led invasion as illegal for the first time.

Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene 'Jack' Armstrong were abducted by armed men along with a Briton, the US embassy confirmed. Interior ministry spokesman Colonel Adnan Abdul Rahman said the three hostages worked for a Gulf-based private equipment firm.

Armed men drove up in a minibus around dawn and burst into the trio's home in the upmarket Mansur neighbourhood of the capital. The abduction bore the hallmarks of the way two Italian women aid workers and two Iraqi colleagues were snatched at gunpoint from inside their house in a quiet residential area of Baghdad earlier this month.

It was likely to further deplete an already dwindling expatriate community whose know-how is seen as essential to revive the war-shattered economy and build a new Iraq. The Al Qaeda-linked Army of Ansar al Sunna said on its website that it had abducted and killed three truck drivers in southern Iraq.

"Mujahedeen ... from the Army of Ansar al-Sunna ... attacked a convoy of trucks ferrying supplies to the crusader forces on September 13, 2004 ... and abducted three drivers," the statement said, adding that the group had "implemented the ruling of God" against the three.

In northern Iraq, a Syrian trucker was snatched from his three-vehicle Syrian-registered convoy transporting foodstuffs, in the latest attack on foreign drivers plying the dangerous roads of Iraq, police said.

Three Swedish citizens of Iraqi origin may have been kidnapped here in three separate incidents over the past two weeks, the Swedish foreign ministry said. "We don't want to go into any details that could identify them and endanger them," said spokeswoman Nina Ersman, remaining tight-lipped on the details. -AFP