Three hostages freed in Iraq

2006-04-05 12:06

Baghdad - United States and Iraqi troops freed three kidnap victims in the north on Wednesday while a Sunni professor was found dead hours after he was abducted in the southern city of Basra, said officials.

According to a statement, acting on a tip, Iraqi soldiers, police and members of the US 172nd Stryker Brigade raided a house in Mosul, 360km northwest of Baghdad.

The combined force found three Iraqis chained to the wall of the basement. There were no casualties, and the US statement made no mention of arrests.

Lecturer's body found

Police captain Mushtaq Khazim said that elsewhere, the body of a lecturer in Basra Technical Institution, Salah Aziz, was found by police early on Wednesday, a day after he was seized by gunmen in the southern city.

The reason for the killing was unclear, but colleagues said the victim had links to the Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars. Basra, 550km southeast of Baghdad, was a majority Shi'ite city.

Tensions between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims had escalated sharply since the February 22 bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, which triggered a wave of reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques and clerics.

Helicopter shot down

Also on Wednesday, American and Iraqi troops raided several buildings in Youssifiyah, killing one insurgent and capturing nine others.

The raid took place three days after a US Apache attack helicopter was shot down, near Youssifiyah, killing the two crew members.

In Baghdad, police said they found the bodies of two men dumped in separate areas of Baghdad late on Tuesday. Police said one of the dead had a criminal record, but the other was unidentified.

Captain Muthana Khalid said police found a body - handcuffed, blindfolded and shot - early on Wednesday in Iskandiriyah, 50km south of Baghdad. He said that a motorist was also killed as he drove past a military convoy.

- AP