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RESCUED OR RELEASED? PT II
CNN reports:
Australian hostage Douglas Wood was rescued when Iraqi soldiers stumbled across him during a security sweep in Baghdad, according to a U.S. military official.
Wood, 64, was working as an engineer in Iraq when he was abducted six weeks ago.
Soldiers from the Iraqi army were conducting a pre-planned search in the al-Adel neighborhood of northwestern Baghdad on Wednesday morning when they came upon Wood and an Iraqi national being held hostage.
The soldiers, from the 2nd Battalion 1st Brigade of the Iraqi army, had not been acting with specific intelligence on his whereabouts, the official told CNN.
In the course of the operation, they met light resistance and as a result three people were detained. Their nationalities are not known.
The operation took place during a U.S. and Iraqi crackdown in Baghdad against insurgents.
That account is dramatically at odds with the version of events described by Sheikh al-Hillali spokesman Keysar Trad:
KEYSAR TRAD: The Mufti told me on Sunday that we could hear some definitive positive news this Wednesday and he had been communicating with the negotiating authority. The problem from their end is that he’s been given these assurances before and they didn’t eventuate and this time they did. This time the mufti’s been more positive and more optimistic than ever before. He said keep a tight lid on it because previous promises had fizzled out. We want this one to come to fruition before we said anything about it. We’re absolutely elated now that this one did come to fruition.
GEORGE NEGUS: Where is the Sheik at the moment, he’s in Cairo isn’t he?
KEYSAR TRAD: He’s in Cairo.
GEORGE NEGUS: So he’s been this touch with proxies?
KEYSAR TRAD: That’s correct. He’s been in touch with proxies, tribal elders, influential people who had been indirectly communicating with the abductors. He’s also been in touch with confidential sources he’s been communicating with over this period and he’s been given these assurances by all these different people and he said Wednesday is going to be an important day but don’t say anything until it happens, and now it has happened.
GEORGE NEGUS: Why now Keysar? What situation has changed and how have things altered in Iraq that would make it possible for this to happen now and not before?
KEYSAR TRAD: What’s happen is the abductors had communicated to the mufti three final demands before he returned to Baghdad the second time. When he got there, he found that there were some obstacles to these demands being met even though they were quite reasonable when you consider them. When I spoke to him on Sunday, he said to me there had been some other minor things and if this eventuates, then the release will take place.
GEORGE NEGUS: Basically what were the demands?
KEYSAR TRAD: The original three demands were that the Americans in particular, when they raid homes looking for insurgents, that they don’t arrest women and minors, just on suspicion that they might be related to the insurgents. That’s one of the key demands and that’s something that is supposed to be guaranteed under the United States convention for treatment of people under occupation. Second demand was a better deal for orphans in Iraq. There had not been enough services for them. And the third one is to try and do something for if media to stop demonising the resistance because they see themselves as a genuine liberation movement and not as terrorists.
GEORGE NEGUS: The Prime Minister said there was a military operation involved in Douglas Wood’s rescue as distinct from his release. Now is there a discrepancy, would you say that the Sheik thinks he’s been rescued or released?
KEYSAR TRAD: There is no discrepancy because this has to be put into perspective. Iraq is a war zone and for a hostage to be released there has to be enough military personnel present at the release site to guarantee his safety. What the mufti said to me is that a release site had been communicated.
GEORGE NEGUS: So he knew where people would go?
KEYSAR TRAD: This is what the mufti had communicated to me at 7.30 this evening, that a release site had been communicated and somebody had to go in there and make sure that the hostage could be picked up safely.
GEORGE NEGUS: So you are saying that there is no discrepancy, for that to happen there had to be military security involved, as distinct from a shootout?
KEYSAR TRAD: That’s correct. If there had been a shootout, then you would hear that there were casualties, people dead on both sides. If there had been a shootout then the likelihood of a safe release or a safe extraction of the hostage would have been reduced dramatically.
GEORGE NEGUS: Would the mufti have passed this information on to the Australian task force in Iraq?
KEYSAR TRAD: The mufti has been cooperating with the task force and they’ve been cooperating with him. He said to me that he’s got not enough words of gratitude for the support that they have given him. They’ve been supporting him all along from the first day. If it wasn’t for the support of the Australian Government, he may be still waiting on the border, waiting for a visa, but they have been helping him and he’s been working with them, co-operating from the first day and as a result now we have got an outcome that we can all be proud of as Australians.
GEORGE NEGUS: Certainly, now he would have been able to tell the people trying to rescue Douglas Wood where and when this was likely to happen and that’s what we’ve seen come to culmination tonight?
KEYSAR TRAD: That’s correct. He wouldn’t have had the final location until just today, so the authorities wouldn’t have known about a final location until today.
Via Currency Lad in comments, here’s a Reuters piece combining the tip-off theory with CNN’s pre-planned raid story:
An Iraqi general said Wood was found when Iraqi troops raided a Baghdad house and pulled back a blanket.
"He was under a blanket. He was tied down and they claimed that he was their father and he was sick,” said Nasir Abadi.
Nick Warner, an Australian diplomat heading a special team dealing with the kidnapping, said the raid was part of a broad security sweep but there had also been a specific tip about the house’s occupants.
Be interesting to learn the source of that tip.
The U.S.-based engineer was rescued by an elite team of U.S. and Iraqi troops at 8.30am yesterday (Baghdad time) at a house about one hour’s drive from the Iraqi capital.
Australian SAS troops working with the Government hostage team also were involved in planning the rescue operation.
Well-placed government sources said the authorities were tipped off about Mr Wood’s location.
"U.S. and Iraqi forces knocked on the door and lo and behold, Mr Wood was there,” a source said.
Keysar Trad, the Sydney spokesman for the Mufti of Australia, Sheik Taj el-Din Al Hilaly, last night said it was the sheik who provided the crucial information.
No-one was injured in the raid, Warner said, but he declined to comment on whether Wood was tortured.
"He has been blindfolded, handcuffed, he has not been well looked after,” he said.
He said “no ransom was paid” despite a request for a “very large” amount of money.
Sheik Hilaly thanked “honest Iraqis” for helping him organise the release of Mr Wood. “My mission is successful,” he said in an interview with SBS’s Arabic language program.
Glad to hear Wood’s free. Now maybe somebody should look into how this mufti dude got so close to those fuckheads, and what ever else he knows.
Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2005 06 15 at 02:30 PM • permalinkOf course Shake Hilariously was successful....in allowing coalition & Iraqi forces to free Woods from his captors.
He was successful.....in ensuring the insurgents’ failure to achieve their goal.
He was also successful......in ensuring the continued presence of coalition forces in Iraq.
This is a definitive moment in Iraq, the symbolic abject failure of insurgents and a great day for the Wood family.
the United States convention for treatment of people under occupation
Sorry, the what? Is this like the United States Convention On Torture And Koran Desecrating ("USCOTAKD")?Posted by Aaron - Freewill on 2005 06 15 at 05:00 PM • permalinkAaron-Freewill—I’m sorry, but I have no truck with any convention where I can’t get a leg over on a drunk chick in a Starfleet uniform…
And is this the Islamic equivalent of the secular “progressive” mantra: “I’m a progressive! Look, there’s some progress! Yay me!”... “The Mufti wanted him released! The soldiers rescued him. Hurray for the Mufti!”
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 06 15 at 07:41 PM • permalink“The Mufti wanted him released! The soldiers rescued him. Hurray for the Mufti!”
Hmmm. Ever watched a little yappy dog bark furiously at a passing jogger just so it can feel proud pretending that it “scared him away” when the guy keeps on going down the street, ignoring him?
Posted by Aaron - Freewill on 2005 06 15 at 07:44 PM • permalinkI’m more than willing to join the Mufti dogpile later, but right now I’m too happy that Doug is alive and well.
Am I the only one who noticed the balls of steel Doug had? No tearful begging for his life, no insistance that Americans and Australians were occupiers. The only thing he did say—“leave or I will be killed”—was so inconsequential as to be useless as propaganda for his (disgusting) captors. And it was clear from the bruises on his face that he didn’t even make THAT statement without putting up a fight. All from a 63 year old man. And he even took time to thank the Iraqi troops who aided in his rescue. Class act all the way.
Why does the Mullah of Moolah remind me of a TV psychic claiming credit for solving a crime after the fact?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 06 15 at 08:32 PM • permalinkWell, it does appear that the Mufti was responsible for Woods release, maybe inadvertently.
This is what Hammorabi has to say:
“Earlier, rumors raised about a ransom of 10 million dollars was sent to Hareth Al-Thari to free DW. The ransom was taken by a mediator who was provided with a GPS telephone which can be detected by the satellite. The target was then followed and the hostage released with out paying any ransom to the kidnappers not to Al-Thari.The Mufti of Australia (Eiz Deen Hilali) who is an Egyptian announced from Egypt to Al-Jazeera TV yesterday that the (Mujahdeen) asked for 25 millions but because he will carry their logical and reasonable demands to the world they agreed to free him. He was sympathized with the terrorists calling them resisters mujahdeen. The statement by the Australian and Iraqi officials including representative from the Iraqi Forces, deny the lie of Hilali.”
When Sheik Al-Hilali intervened in the Woods case, either successfully or not, he explicitly sent a message to the world that this kidnapping was wrong. He wrapped it up in lots of rhetoric about the evils of the U.S. etc but the bottom line is that if he worked for the release of Woods he, by his actions, condemned the actions of these terrorists.
Why is no-one asking the question as to whether these kidnappings are becoming a business for the kidnappers? It happened in Italy, Northern Ireland and lots of other places. Sooner or later the senior ranks of the kidnappers become entrepreneurs. The kidnaps then begin to follow certain rules re price and guarantees of delivery which we are starting to see. They also soon lead to corruption of local authorities.
Vomit inducing piece from “The Age”
Different strategies, one aim
Despite his own health problems, Sheikh Hilali worked tirelessly on Mr Wood’s behalf without putting pressure on or criticising the Government
What bullshit. I suppose this is an attempt by the Fairfax press to turn the Mufti into a martyr, dispensing with the more traditional need to hire a car and load it with semtex.
allan: the bottom line is that if he worked for the release of Woods he, by his actions, condemned the actions of these terrorists.
Did he? Or did he just play up their delusions of grandeur by making a big show of pandering to them? And I mean a big, big show.
Character is the good you do in the dark.
o/t-A.M. today interviewing CLP in Darwin for election.
On zero tolerance."D’you think people in southern cities-Sydney.Melbourne REALLY UNDERSTAND the EXTENT of the problem.
Not bad considering the media helped ABC’s Clare Martin to victory in N.T. by demonizing the three strikes laws etc.
Now the Labor party is campaigning on a platform of re introducing many of the C.L.P’s initiatives and indeed making them more severe.
But your ABC, everready to pursue truth and justice stated “Tomorrow A.M. will LOOK for these itinerants- the LONG GRASSERS.
Bet Tony is fervently hoping he doesn’t find any.If you just stick to the facts,
Hilaly publicly announced that he had given up and
Iraqi troops rescued Wood from his captors.
In Hilay’s defense, he may have delayed the Wood execution but we dont know that as other hostages have been recently released.
And the other hostage was rescued unharmed, he is an Iraqi so did Hilaly speak on his behalf too?
My thinking is that they are a den of thieves and I dont believa any of them.
So lets stick to the facts Shakey hillaley
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Well, as the blatant perfidy joke punch line goes, ``This is the Middle East.’’