11 Pakistanis Kidnapped in Iraq Freed; Fate of 5 Others Unknown

Eleven Pakistani construction workers kidnapped Aug. 13 in Iraq were released Monday, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said.

The Pakistanis, who were working for a Kuwaiti company, were abducted near the town of Nasiriya, ministry spokesman Mohammed Naeem Khan told a news conference.

He said three Egyptians and two Indians were among those kidnapped but did not say whether they had also been freed.

The released men were taken to the southern Iraqi city of Basra and were due to be transferred to Kuwait, he said.

Last year, suspected Islamic militants kidnapped two Pakistani migrant workers in Iraq and later executed them.

Pakistan’s ambassador to Iraq escaped unharmed when his convoy was attacked last month in Baghdad’s wealthy Mansour district.

The good news for the Pakistanis was tempered by continued violence elsewhere in Iraq.

Near Samarra, north of Baghdad, two American soldiers were killed and two more were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded Monday, the military said.

In the southern part of the capital, another soldier was killed in a rocket attack, the military said. None of the slain soldiers was immediately identified.

At least 1,869 U.S. service members have died since the war began in March 2003.

In Tarmiya, north of Baghdad, gunmen killed eight police officers and two other Iraqis in a minivan, police and hospital sources said.

Four bodies were found in western Baghdad near a Sunni Muslim mosque, an Interior Ministry source said.

Their identities were not immediately clear.