Iraq: Three Romanian journalists kidnapped in Iraq were freed yesterday after two months in captivity, one of only a few bits of good news since insurgents launched an upsurge in deadly attacks last month.
"They are well and safe and they'll be brought home as soon as possible," the Romanian presidency said in a statement.
The kidnappers had threatened to kill the hostages unless Romania withdrew its 800 troops from Iraq, where over 150 foreign hostages and thousands of Iraqis have been abducted over the last two years.
Prima TV reporter Marie Jeanne Ion, cameraman Sorin Miscoci and reporter for Romania Libera newspaper Ovidiu Ohanesian, along with their translator Mohamad Munaf, were kidnapped in late March. Romania said they were now under the control of Romanian authorities. Munaf has US, Romanian and Iraqi citizenship. The circumstances of their release were not immediately clear.
Several high-profile kidnappings in recent weeks have deepened a security crisis that has deteriorated sharply since a new Iraq government was formed.
Mainly Sunni Muslim insurgents have escalated attacks on officials and security forces since a Shia-dominated government was sworn in, handing power to Iraq's majority religious sect for the first time in decades.
Tit-for-tat attacks between Sunnis and Shias have raised fears that the violence could spark civil war.
Other foreign captives remain unaccounted for. Militants holding Australian citizen Douglas Wood (63) have threatened to kill him unless Australia starts withdrawing its troops from Iraq. Their deadline has passed, with no word on Wood's fate.
An Islamic militant group says it captured a badly wounded Japanese citizen - Akihiko Saito, a 44-year-old security consultant and veteran of the French Foreign Legion - in an ambush near a US base earlier this month.
The group showed a video of an ambush of a convoy that it said led to the capture of Saito. Others who were also captured and condemned as "agents of the crusaders" were dragged out of their vehicles, lined up on the ground and shot repeatedly. Iraq's government wants to convince Iraqis and foreign countries that its security forces are improving and will eventually take over from about 140,000 US troops.
But mounting violence that has killed more than 500 people since late April suggests insurgents are getting stronger, carrying out almost daily suicide bombings and shootings that have fuelled sectarian tensions.
Gunmen shot dead a senior official in Iraq's trade ministry as he was being driven to work in Baghdad yesterday, police said, the latest in a series of assassinations of government employees. Ali Mousa Salman was killed after leaving his Baghdad home.
Meanwhile, at least five Iraqi commandos were killed on Saturday in the town of Baiji, 180 km (110 miles) north of the capital, Iraqi police said.
The al Qaeda group in Iraq said late yesterday it had killed a US pilot it had captured and posted pictures of what it said were his identity papers on the Internet.- (Reuters)