Australian Hostage Freed; Terror Arrests in Spain

From www.foxnews.com

Hostage Freed; Iraqi Authorities Attacked

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi troops, backed by U.S. forces, freed an Australian hostage after six weeks in captivity, officials said Wednesday. Meanwhile, a car bomb killed eight police officers in Baghdad and another bomber killed 25 Iraqi soldiers north of the capital.
A car bomber slammed into two police cars on patrol Wednesday in eastern Baghdad, killing eight officers, authorities said.
The attack occurred in Baghdad's Zafaraniya neighborhood, according to police Lt. Thaer Mohamoud and 1st Sgt. Mohhamed Fadhil.
Hours earlier, a bomber detonated his explosives at a crowded mess hall in Khalis, about 44 miles north of Baghdad, Iraqi army Col. Saleh al-Obeidi said. The blast killed 25 Iraqi soldiers and injured 27.
Al-Obeidi said the man was wearing an army uniform and waited until soldiers had gathered for lunch before blowing himself up. The soldiers belonged to the Al-Salam battalion of the 2nd brigade of the Iraqi army in Diyala province.
Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, it bore the hallmarks of Iraq's radical extremist groups — which regularly use suicide attackers.
No details were available on the operation in Baghdad that led to the release of Douglas Wood (search), a 64-year-old engineer who lives in Alamo, Calif. He was abducted in late April by a militant group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq.
The Australian government refused to bend to the kidnappers' demands that its 1,400 troops be withdrawn from Iraq. It sent diplomats, police and military personnel to Baghdad to seek his release.
"I am delighted to inform the House that the Australian hostage in Iraq, Mr. Douglas Wood, is safe," Prime Minister John Howard (search) told Parliament in Canberra, Australia.
"Mr. Wood was recovered a short while ago in Baghdad in a military operation that I am told was conducted by Iraqi forces in cooperation in a general way with force elements of the United States," Howard said.
Howard told reporters an Iraqi military unit rescued Wood but the full details of how it occurred were not yet known.


At least some of the good guys got freed for a change, and not decapitated on a live feed for a change. John Howard even announced the Australian being rescued by Coalition Military, and this got thunderous applause. Bet that won't get much play on the liberal media.....

Spain Makes Terror Arrests

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

MADRID, Spain — Police arrested 16 Islamic terror suspects in raids in several cities, including 11 men accused of having ties to Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi's (search) group Al Qaeda in Iraq and recruiting people for attacks there, officials said Wednesday.
The 11 were part of a support group for a Syrian-based recruitment network for attacks on U.S. and allied forces, and some of them had said they themselves wanted to become "martyrs for Islam" and were awaiting orders to do so, the Interior Ministry said. It did not specify how Spanish authorities learned of these alleged intentions.
Most of the 11 are Moroccan and practically all of them sold drugs and committed robberies to finance the network, the ministry said. They were arrested as part of an investigation that began in 2004.
The other five detainees were described as suspects in last year's train bombing in Madrid.
Some 500 Spanish police took part in raids in Barcelona, Valencia, the southern Andalusia region, and Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the northern coast of Morocco.
The arrests were ordered by a judge at the National Court, the Madrid-based tribunal that is the hub of Spain's investigations of Islamic terror cases, including the train bombings and an Al Qaeda (search) cell on trial in Madrid. Three of the 24 defendants are charged with helping plot the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
A total of 26 people have been jailed in the train bombings, and more than 70 others have been questioned and released but are still considered suspects.

Gracias to the Spanish for their diligence in these arrests. Let's hope they catch many more.....