U.S. Forces Free 41 Al-Qaeda Captives

05/27/2007

By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 27, 2007


BAGHDAD, May 27 -- U.S. forces raided an al-Qaeda in Iraq hideout northeast of Baghdad on Sunday and rescued 41 people who had been kidnapped by the group, some as long as four months ago, a U.S. military spokesman said.

Some of the victims had broken bones and bore signs of torture, said Col. Steven A. Boylan, spokesman for Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq. It was apparently the largest number of people ever rescued from al-Qaeda, Boylan said.

Students of Mustansiriyah university protest behind an Iraqi flag as they hold pictures of colleagues killed last week by gunmen in Waziriya neighborhood in northern Baghdad, Sunday, May 27, 2007. On May 22 a fake checkpoint by gunmen disguised as soldiers stopped a bus transporting university students, killing eight and wounding three. The demonstrators demanded the government supply protection for college and school students and move the college of education to a more secure region.(AP Photo/Karim Kadim) (Karim Kadim - AP)

"This is typical of al-Qaeda. This is how they intimidate towns and villages -- they take people and hold them," he said.

Details of the operation were sketchy Sunday night.

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