Associated Press Writer

By JEANNETTE J.By JEANNETTE J. LEE

EAGLE RIVER, Alaska - A former neighbor of an Alaskan believed held hostage in Iraq reacted with disbelief Thursday at the news that an Iraqi insurgent group claimed it had killed a Western captive.

"War is just so weird," said Ronald Schulz's former neighbor, Bonny Stark. "All this stuff happens to everyone else. It's unreal to me."

The insurgent group said Thursday in an Internet posting that it killed a kidnapped U.S. security consultant. The claim's authenticity could not be immediately verified.

It was the first time in more than a year that an insurgent group announced the slaying of an American hostage. Thursday's statement, posted on an Islamic militant Web forum, did not identify the hostage and provided no evidence he had been killed, but said pictures of the slaying would be released later.

The Islamic Army in Iraq said it had killed "the American security consultant for the Housing Ministry," after the United States failed to respond to its demand of the release of Iraqi prisoners.

Family and friends said Schulz, 40, works throughout the world as an industrial electrician, while insurgents on the video claim he is a security consultant.

Stark, of Chugiak, got to know Schulz through her children. They participated in youth sports with the children of Schulz's former in-laws, Lou and Lisa Gregory. Children from both families called Schulz "Uncle Ron."

"All I have is memories of him being nice to my children, and his nieces and nephew," Stark said.

She said Schulz kept to himself since moving to Alaska six years ago. Since he traveled so frequently, family members or others took care of his home. Stark estimated Schulz only made friends with two families besides his former relations.

A message left on the cell phone of Lou Gregory, another former Marine and Schulz's former brother-in-law, was not immediately returned Thursday.

Lisa Gregory, whose sister was once married to Schulz, declined comment, and directed phone calls to Schulz's family in North Dakota, said a man who answered the phone at her home and declined to identify himself.

(Associated Press Writer Dan Joling in Anchorage contributed to this report.)