Coalition Forces Rescue Three Kidnapped Peace Activists in Iraq
23 March 2006
Operation based on intelligence from insurgent detainee, says U.S. general
By David I. McKeeby
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Coalition forces successfully freed three kidnapped Western aid workers who had been held by Iraqi insurgents for four months, U.S. Major General Rick Lynch announced March 23.
“I am happy to report that all three are in good condition; they have had a medical screening and are anxious to reunite with their families,” Lynch said during a press briefing in Baghdad.
Based on intelligence received from a detainee captured the night before, coalition forces raided a rural home west of Baghdad, where they found the hostages bound and abandoned by their kidnappers, Lynch reported.
“The key point is that [the rescue] was intelligence-led and it was information provided by a detainee,” he said, adding that an important aspect of coalition detention operations is obtaining actionable intelligence.
On November 26, 2005, a group of kidnappers calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigades abducted four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, a Chicago-based international organization of peace activists.
The freed men, Canadians James Loney and Harmeet Sooden, and Briton Norman Kember, were seen on several videotapes produced by the kidnappers and broadcast widely in the international media in recent months.
On March 10, the body of the fourth kidnapped member of the group, American Tom Fox of Virginia, was discovered in a rail yard in western Baghdad.
During the briefing, Lynch also reported that insurgents detonated two car bombs that killed 21 people and wounded more than 50. The first exploded near a police facility as part of a series of attacks on Iraqi security forces. The second exploded outside a Shi’a mosque in southwest Baghdad.
For more information, see Iraq Update.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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