A deal has been reached for the release of a British journalist and his Iraqi interpreter kidnapped in Iraq, radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's office in Basra said today.
Harith al-Edhari, a director of Mr al-Sadr's office, said negotiations had persuaded the captors to free the two CBS journalists later today. Iraqi police and witnesses said the two were seized from a hotel in Basra on Sunday.
CBS News said on Monday that its two employees were missing, but it did not identify them.
Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, has seen fierce fighting between rival Shia militias as part of a power struggle in the oil-rich south.
Yesterday, the body of a local journalist was found in central Baghdad two days after being kidnapped, Iraq 's Journalistic Freedoms Observatory said in a statement.
The Committee to Protect Journalists in a recent report called the Iraq war "the deadliest conflict for journalists in recent history," with 125 journalists and 49 support workers killed since the US-led invasion in 2003.