Chicago Tribune

BAGHDAD, Iraq – On another day of intense violence that left more than 50 dead, Iraqi soldiers rescued an Australian hostage, notching a rare, high-profile success for the country’s fledgling security force.

Working from a tip that the Australian contractor could be found in a home in far western Baghdad, Iraqi soldiers – with backup from U.S. troops – searched the neighborhood for 64-year-old Douglas Wood.

As they searched the home in a neighborhood with a reputation for being sympathetic to the insurgency, the Iraqi soldiers noticed what looked like someone hidden under a blanket.

They questioned the three Iraqi men in the house, who insisted it was just their sickly father. The Iraqi soldiers, from an army that is more often noted for incompetence than heroism, weren’t fooled; they knew it was the man they were looking for.

“This is a great day for Iraq,” a beaming Gen. Naseer al-Abedi, Iraq’s deputy chief of staff, told reporters in the capital. “We are proud of the way our soldiers conducted themselves.”

Al-Abedi added that three men in the home were detained as suspects in the kidnapping and an Iraqi contractor who was kidnapped separately from Wood was also freed in the raid on the home. U.S. military officials said Iraqi soldiers were the key to finding Wood and the American troops played a secondary role.

News of Wood’s rescue came on a day when insurgents launched a series of bloody attacks, the majority of which targeted Iraqi soldiers and police.

Suicide attacks in the northern town of Khalis, Iraq, killed 26 soldiers, and another in the capital killed 10 people, including eight police.

In the Khalis incident, a man with explosives strapped to his body walked into a restaurant packed with Iraqi soldiers on their lunch break and detonated the bomb, said Defense Ministry spokesman Salih Sarhan. Al-Qaida in Iraq, a terrorist organization linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility.

News service reports indicated the attacker was wearing an Iraqi army uniform and the attack occurred on a canteen on the military base. Sarhan, however, said that the restaurant was off base and that the suicide attacker was wearing civilian clothes.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In Baghdad, 10 people were killed when a suicide attacker drove a car bomb into two squad cars. Dozens of bystanders were wounded, and several nearby civilian vehicles were burned.

Five Iraqis were killed and eight others were injured when three errant mortar shells landed in a Baghdad kebab restaurant Wednesday. The intended target appeared to be a nearby police station.

In the western end of the capital, one civilian was killed and six police officers were injured in a gun battle with insurgents.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, Iraq, rebels reportedly kidnapped and killed two senior officers in the city’s anti-terrorist squad. Seven people, including two police, were killed in the northern town of Tal Afar in clashes with insurgents, police Brig. Gen Naji Abdullah told the Associated Press.

Wood’s release from captivity comes just four days after French journalist Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi translator were freed from captivity after being held hostage for 157 days. French authorities have been reluctant to release details of how they were able to negotiate the pair’s release but have denied they paid a ransom.

In Wood’s case, a “very large” ransom was demanded, said Nick Warner, head of the Australian Emergency Response Team that was dispatched to Iraq to work on Wood’s release. Warner said the Australian government never considered paying but had engaged in talks with the captors through a third-party intermediary.

At one point, Wood’s family in Australia reportedly offered to make a contribution to a charity that would benefit Iraqis in exchange for his release.

Wood was captured with two Iraqi men. Warner said Wood reported Wednesday that for the first week to 10 days of his captivity, the Iraqis were kept at his location. They were then separated, and Wood did not know what became of them, Warner said.

Wood, a construction engineer in Iraq and longtime resident of Alamo, Calif., went missing April 29. A few days later the first DVD with images of Wood surfaced from a group calling itself Shura Council of the Mujahedeen. The captors demanded that U.S., British and Australian troops leave the country.

About a week later, a second DVD surfaced in the Arab media demanding that Australian troops leave the country. At the end of May, the Australians were given a third DVD through an intermediary demanding the ransom, Warner said.

Warner read a short written statement from Wood thanking the Iraqis, Australians and Americans for searching for him.

“I’m extremely happy and relieved to be free again and deeply grateful to all those who worked to bring about my release,” Wood said in the statement.

Warner, who is Australia’s counterterrorism chief, said Wood remained in Baghdad on Wednesday, where he was receiving medical and psychological care. Wood, who has heart problems, was not in good shape when the Iraqi forces found him, Warner said.

“He has been blindfolded, handcuffed; he has not been well looked after,” Warner said.

In other developments, two U.S. Marines were killed in separate roadside bomb attacks in western Iraq, the U.S. military reported Wednesday.

In one attack, a Marine died from wounds he suffered after a roadside bomb exploded near a vehicle he was driving in during combat operations in Rutbah, Iraq, on Tuesday.

A second Marine died in similar fashion Tuesday in Fallujah, Iraq, during combat operations. As of Wednesday, at least 1,708 members of the U.S. military have died in hostilities in Iraq, according to an Associated Press count.

Two Bulgarian soldiers were killed and a third injured late Tuesday when their vehicle slid into a canal while out on patrol southeast of Divaniyah, Iraq, the U.S. military reported.(Username: fpnews and Password: viewnc05 allow editors to view photos.) To purchase photos or to get your own NewsCom username and password, U.S. and Canadian newspapers, please call Tribune Media (800) 637-4082 or (312) 222-2448 or email to tmssalestribune.com. Others contact NewsCom at (202) 383-6070 or email supportnewscom.com. Use search terms: “iraq and australian” and “iraq and unrest”

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