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Australian minister denies Woods' rescue was staged

Australia's defense minister yesterday denied a newspaper report that hostage Donald Wood's dramatic rescue from militants in Baghdad this month was stage-managed.

The Sunday Age newspaper reported that Australian negotiators had reached an agreement with Wood's captors for his release 10 days before his rescue on June 15. But it said they scrapped it after deciding that paying a US$100,000 ransom would set a bad precedent.

Wood, 63, a US-based engineering contractor, was released by Iraqi forces in Baghdad after 47 days in captivity. Prime Minister John Howard has said the operation showed the success of the US-led and Australian-supported campaign in the country to train local forces. The circumstances of the release remain unclear. Australian foreign affairs officials say the Iraqi troops were acting on intelligence about possible insurgent activity in the area of Baghdad where Wood was found, while the US military said he was discovered by chance during a routine search.

The Sunday Age said it had learned that Wood's rescue was carefully planned and that Iraqi troops were used in the operation to disguise Australia's behind-the-scenes involvement.

The paper said Australia's top Muslim cleric, Sheikh Taj Aldin Al Hilali, played an instrumental role in the release, conferring almost daily with the head of the Australian emergency response team Nick Warner. It said the sheikh's communications "were almost certainly bugged." The paper said the sheikh was the link between intermediaries for the kidnappers and the response team "and took great personal risks to keep the communication open. By monitoring his communications, the response team was able to pinpoint Mr Wood's location."

"The suggestion in the article that it was somehow deliberately delayed is a nonsense," Defense Minister Robert Hill said, adding that the rescue was a joint effort but the Iraqi military deserved its share of credit.

"In the end it was the Iraqi army who found him. In the end I think it was the partnership of interests, whether it was the Islamic interest groups in Australia, the nations that contributed, the Americans, the Brits, the Iraqis themselves -- everybody worked hard to achieve a goal of getting Mr. Wood out alive and I was thrilled that we succeeded, he said."

Hilali has previously said he had already negotiated Wood's release before the Iraqi military moved in. Wood was set to speak publicly about his ordeal in an interview with Australia's Channel Ten network yesterday, for which he will reportedly be paid US$400,000 dollars.

He was kidnapped in April by a group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq, which initially demanded Australia remove its 900 troops from Iraq in exchange for his life.
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