Four Jordanians held hostage in Iraq have been released, the brother of one of them said Wednesday.
Mohammed abu Jaafar told The Associated Press that he had spoken on the phone to his brother Ahmad, who told him: "Now I am free. I was hands in the hands of evil people. Now I am in the hands of good people."
Mohammed spoke from his house in Irbid, north of the Jordanian capital, Amman.
According to Mohammed, his brother Ahmad told him they were freed about midnight Tuesday in Fallujah, a town west of Baghdad, on the mediation of Haj Ibrahim Jassam.
Mohammed named the four freed hostages as truck drivers Ahmad Abu-Jaafar, Mohammad Ahmad Khleifat, Khaled Ibrahim Masoud and businessman Ahmad Tayseer Sunokrot.
On Tuesday, Jordan's Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher expected “positive results soon” in government efforts to help release the hostages kidnapped in Iraq. He told the Jordan News Agency, Petra, that the government is “exerting round-the-clock efforts to secure the hostages' release.”
Muasher said the government set up two operation rooms in Jordan and at the embassy in Baghdad to be in constant touch with the families of the hostages, tribal leaders, religious leaders and other prominent Iraqis.
Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera television reported Wednesday that two Turkish hostages had been freed in Iraq. (albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
