Kidnappers free Japanese hostages in Iraq

Nobutaka Watanabe, left, and Jumpei Yasuda sit in Baghdad's Um al-Qura mosque after being met by a Japanese delegation upon their release. PHOTO: REUTERS

Kidnappers freed two Japanese hostages in Baghdad yesterday, a day after a captured US soldier was paraded in a video tape aired on an Arab television channel.

A news cameraman saw freelance journalist Jumpei Yasuda, 30, and Nobutaka Watanabe, 36, a former member of the Japanese military with ties to a civic group, being handed to a Japanese delegation at the Um al-Qura mosque in apparent good health.

Insurgents have kidnapped more than 40 foreigners this month as US-led forces battle rebels in towns such as Fallujah in the Sunni Muslim heartlands of central Iraq and try to snuff out a revolt by a radical Shi'ite militia in the south.

The turmoil has prompted the US military to close highways north and south of Baghdad indefinitely yesterday, soon after US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to stamp out violence in Iraq.

But guns fell silent in Falluja, west of Baghdad, where air strikes and clashes have frequently punctuated a shaky truce.

"For the first time in days, Fallujah is completely calm," said one resident in the battered city of 300,000.

Senior civilian and military representatives of Iraq's US-led administration had taken part in peace talks on Friday.

A senior official of Iraq's US-led administration said talks were to resume yesterday morning, though it was not immediately clear whether they had begun.

A senior US military official said a bridge to Fallujah's main hospital had been opened to traffic, but no overall deal had been reached with the estimated 1,000 to 2,000 fighters in the town. "Sitting on the fence is not an option," he declared.

The captors of US Private Keith Maupin, seized after an attack on a road convoy last week, released a videotape that showed him surrounded by masked gunmen.

Maupin, one of two missing US soldiers, identified himself in a soft voice on the videotape.

The two freed Japanese hostages said they had been well treated during their three days of captivity.

"We had a good meal every day," Yasuda said. "I don't know the place where we were. We were caught around Abu Ghraib [on the outskirts of Baghdad] and after that we were blindfolded and changed houses every day."

Most hostages have been released, including three other Japanese freed on Thursday.