Group frees US journalist hostage in Iraq, says TV

1.00pm

DUBAI - US journalist Micah Garen was on Sunday freed by an Iraqi group who had held him hostage in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya.

"I am very grateful to everyone who worked to protect me and guarantee my release and I thank my friends in Nassiriya and my family and fiance who spent three months with me in Nassiriya," Garen told Arab satellite television Al Jazeera by telephone.

He was speaking from the Nassiriya office of rebel Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

"Today he was brought to the office of Sheikh Sadr in Nassiriya and he is now there. We have called the human rights body in Nassiriya to come and receive him," Aws al-Khafaji, an aide to Sadr, told Al Jazeera.

Garen, of New York-based company Four Corners Media, said he was seized while taking pictures with a small camera at a market in Nassiriya.

"People misunderstood what I was taking pictures of. There was a misunderstanding," he said without elaborating. His comments were translated into Arabic by the channel.

A group calling itself the Secret Action Group of the Mehdi Army said in an internet statement on Friday it was holding a US journalist hostage and would release him on Saturday because he was opposed to US administration policies.

The statement did not name its captive but appeared to be referring to Garen who was kidnapped last week.

Al Jazeera said on Friday it received a videotaped message in which Garen named his captors as the "Martyrs Brigades".

Khafaji did not name the kidnappers but said they responded to repeated calls from Sadr aides to release the journalist.

"They (kidnappers) thought he was part of the US intelligence but then realised that this American journalist helped uncover the truth about events in Iraq, especially in Nassiriya," he said.

Militiamen of Sadr's Mehdi Army have been waging a bloody uprising against US and Iraqi forces in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf and other southern Iraqi towns for nearly three weeks.

Militants in Iraq launched a campaign of kidnapping aimed at driving out individuals and firms supporting US forces and the new Iraqi interim administration. Some hostages have been released but at least nine have been killed.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq