Kidnapped Chinese in Iraq freed

Kidnapped Chinese in Iraq freed

Reuters, Beijing

Seven Chinese construction workers kidnapped in the volatile
Iraqi town of Falluja have been released after 36 hours in
captivity, Chinese state media and the Arabic television station
Al Jazeera said.

The network aired footage showing at least six of the men, one
with a bandaged forehead, sitting in a room as a first secretary
of the Chinese embassy in Iraq expressed thanks and joy at their
release.

China's official Xinhua news agency said two of the captives
had been slightly injured in a traffic accident. "Their physical
and spiritual condition is generally stable," it added.

"There were no negotiations and no ransom was paid," Chinese
Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told a news conference.

Iraqi friends of China helped obtain their release, Kong said,
adding that the hostages were not mistreated following their
abduction on Sunday.

China was regarded as a friend by Iraq's former Baathist
government under Saddam Hussein. Beijing pledged US$24 million
for reconstruction at a donor conference in Madrid last year.

"We are deeply worried about the current situation in Iraq,"
Kong said. "The Iraq issue should be carefully and skillfully
settled within the UN framework."

Meanwhile, Japanese Senior Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs
Ichiro Aisawa hailed Jordan's efforts to help resolve the hostage
crisis in Iraq after talks here on Tuesday with Prime Minister
Faisal al-Fayez.

But the Japanese envoy, who heads a crisis cell at the embassy
here, gave no word on the fate of the three Japanese kidnapped in
Iraq last Thursday.

"The Jordanian government has helped us greatly to try to
solve the hostage issue and for that we are very grateful from
the bottom of our heart," Aisawa told reporters.

"I asked the prime minister for his continued help on this
matter and the prime minister promised to cooperate as best he
can."

Earlier the envoy said he also hoped to meet Jordan's King
Abdullah II "as soon as possible."

Hostage takers, calling themselves the "Mujahedeen Brigades",
have threatened to execute the three unless Japan withdraws its
550 troops from the southern Iraqi city of Samawa.

In a separatist development, an Islamist group holding four
Italians demanded that Italy pull its troops out of Iraq, after
other kidnappers freed five Ukrainians and three Russians on
Tuesday in the latest spin of the hostage carousel.

The past week's kidnappings have lent a new dimension to the
Iraq conflict, snaring civilians from a dozen countries, some of
which, like Russia, opposed the war that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Al Jazeera television showed a tape of four men it described
as Italian hostages seated on the ground holding their passports,
with armed men behind them.

Italian state RAI television said earlier that four Italians
working for private security firm DPS were missing and could be
the same men whom insurgents claimed last week to have captured.

The Ukrainians and Russians were freed a day after they were
seized in Iraq, where a U.S. military crackdown has led to the
abduction of over 40 foreigners and a flareup of violence.