Families say five Iraq hostages freed

9.35am

TRIPOLI, Lebanon - Five truck drivers from Lebanon, Jordan and Syria who were being held hostage in Iraq have been freed, their families said on Monday.

The two Jordanian drivers had been held for two weeks by militants demanding their company stop working with the US military occupying Iraq.

"My brother phoned me saying he was fine and was freed and would be heading home on Tuesday with his colleague," said Omar al-Udwan, brother of Fayez Saad al-Udwan, one of the drivers.

The wife of one of the two Lebanese drivers, Nada Sayyour, said her husband, Qasim Murqbawi, had telephoned her from Iraq to say he had been freed. "He said he had been freed, and that his captors had taken nothing from him," she told Reuters.

She said Murqbawi, 50, sounded well and had told her he and his colleague were both fine.

She said she thought the second man who was released was Nasir al-Jundi, one of two brothers who had been taken hostage, but Jundi's family was not able to confirm his release.

The two were among four men captured on Thursday on a road between Baghdad and Ramadi, a volatile area west of Baghdad where suspicion of foreigners runs high.

Sayyour's husband was driving a truckload of pineapple juice. Others in his convoy were carrying electrical generators. Lebanon's Truckers' Union said none of them had links with the US-led foreign forces in Iraq.

At least three Lebanese are still missing in Iraq. Businessman Antoine Antoun is still being held, but relatives said on Monday that his Syrian driver, Issa Al-Sheik Awad, had been freed and called them from Baghdad.

"He told us Antoine was well and would also be freed without any conditions or ransom in the next few days," said one relative who declined to be identified.

There was still no news of Nasir al-Jundi's brother Taha nor of Khaldun Osman, another trucker thought to be in the same convoy that left Lebanon on Sunday and never reached Baghdad.

In recent months, several Lebanese have been kidnapped in Iraq and later released. Some captors demanded money. Others accused them of working too closely with US-led forces. In June, a Lebanese hostage was killed in Iraq.

A group calling itself the Mujahideen Corps said it had kidnapped the two Jordanians two weeks ago and would kill them unless their company stopped working with American forces.

The two were abducted after leaving a US base near Qaim, close to the Syrian border, where their firm had a sub-contract with the US military to build prefabricated housing.

The firm then said it had pulled out of the deal to save the lives of the two drivers.

Armed Iraqis freed four other Jordanian hostages in a raid on their captors' hide-out last week. The captors said they were holding the men to force the transport company to stop cooperating with US forces. But the freed hostages later said their kidnappers had wanted money.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq