Prayers For U.S. Hostage In Iraq

A yellow ribbon was tied around a tree Wednesday outside the home of a businessman believed abducted in Iraq, and an American flag fluttered on a pole.

Jeffrey Ake's family and the company he runs made no immediate public comments about reports of his kidnapping. The family was following the FBI's advice in not commenting, police Chief David Gariepy told reporters after meeting with the family.

He asked residents of the community about 25 miles west of South Bend to "hope and pray and wait."

Al-Jazeera television showed

Al-Jazeera said the man asked the U.S. government to withdraw from Iraq and to save his life. No group claimed responsibility for the abduction.

"I believe it is a terrible situation for the family and we have to keep them in our thoughts and pray for his safe return," Gariepy said. "It devastates all of us as Americans when someone from our country is involved in something like this."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the Bush administration was keeping in touch with the Ake family, but he said there would be no negotiations with the kidnappers.

Ake, 47, is president and CEO of Equipment Express in nearby Rolling Prairie, whose products include machines that fill water bottles.

Ake's company has been working as part of the effort to rebuild Iraq since the U.S. invasion two years ago. In 2003, it built a machine that fills containers of cooking oil and a system to provide water bottles to be sold in Baghdad.

"We are a very entrepreneurial company," Ake told the South Bend Tribune last year. "We do a lot of exporting, a lot of our business is in overseas markets. We serve a lot of different industries."

By Tom Coyne