ANOTHER HOSTAGE CRISIS? – AT 10:28 A.M. ET:   Three Americans have been kidnapped in Iraq.  Another legacy of our fast, incompetent pullout from that country...after securing it.  From Fox: 

A group of Americans who disappeared in Baghdad over the weekend were kidnapped from their interpreter's apartment, according to multiple Iraqi sources.

The apartment is well-known in southern Baghdad as a brothel and is subject to frequent raids by Shiite militias, including the Iran-backed Asa’ib ah al-Haqq, a police official and a building resident told The Washington Post.

"We are in very direct contact with the Iraqi authorities... there is a very full effort going to find them as soon as possible," Secretary of State John Kerry told Fox News Monday.

An Iraqi intelligence official told the Associated Press that the Americans were invited into the apartment in the neighborhood of Dora. After they were abducted, they were taken to Sadr City, at which point the official said, "all communications and contact stopped."

A spokesman for Baghdad's Joint Operations Command told The Washington Post that the three citizens were Iraqis who had acquired U.S. citizenship. A Baghdad police official said they worked as contractors at Baghdad International Airport, but did not say which country employed them.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad confirmed Sunday that "several" Americans had vanished, while the State Department said it was working with the Iraqi government to locate them.

COMMENT:  Hard to know if there are any serious international implications.  It could be just a criminal act.  But nothing in the Mideast is uncomplicated.  We'll follow this.  If there are ransom demands, with threats of execution, we could be looking at another hostage crisis.  Potential hostage takers will watch our response carefully.

January 18,  2016