NationStates Jolt Archive

Douglas Wood was returned to Australian care this evening, good for him. PM Howard was just on TV saying he was recovered by Iraqi. I found a better news article

Source (http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=X&oi=news&start=0&num=2&q=http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp%3Fsection%3DBreaking%26storyId%3D1049299%26tw%3Dwn_wire_story)


CANBERRA - Australian hostage Douglas Wood was freed from his Iraqi captors on Wednesday after being held for six weeks, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said.

"Mr Wood was recovered a short while ago in Baghdad in a military operation which I'm told was conducted by Iraqi forces, in cooperation in a general way with force elements from the United States," Howard told the Australian parliament.

Howard said Wood was now safe and well under the protection of Australian troops in Baghdad.

Wood, a 63-year-old engineer married to an American woman, has been held hostage since early May, when a two-minute video of him was delivered to news agencies.

Iraqi militants had warned Australia to begin withdrawing its troops from Iraq or they would kill Wood.

Australia's conservative government, a staunch U.S. ally and among the first to join the war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq two years ago, refused to give in to the militants' demands.

A new contingent of 450 Australian troops has recently been deployed to southern Iraq to provide security and to train the Iraqi army, taking Australia's total troop numbers in and around Iraq to about 1,400.

A damned good ending!

Three cheers for the new Iraqi Army! :D

On another note, the Sydney Morning Herald initially ran with the headline "Australian hostage in Iraq has been released", released has now been changed to "freed".

Oh, well, what can you expect from a pig but a grunt?

A damned good ending!

Three cheers for the new Iraqi Army! :D

On another note, the Sydney Morning Herald initially ran with the headline "Australian hostage in Iraq has been released", released has now been changed to "freed".

Oh, well, what can you expect from a pig but a grunt?

*Cheers*

AAP also ran 'released' with no talk of military action (thus the edit), so unless this is a government propaganda conspiracy the SMH wasn't the only one with an inaccurate article.

SMH gots its article from AAP.

God Job Iraqi Army. Keep up the good work.

Interestingly enough, about an hour ago on Dateline, the spokesman for that Mufti claimed they had known he was gonna be released since last Wednesday or something. That he was freed by the kidnappers after negotiations....
:confused:

al-Hilaly has said on several occasions that he expected the imminent release of Wood.

al-Hilaly has said on several occasions that he expected the imminent release of Wood.

This time the spokesperson said they knew and wanted to keep it quiet because they'd been conned before.
Suspicious, but not impossible.
This whole military operation thing sounds too good to be true though.

Why? al-Hilaly left Iraq on the 6th, you know.

Why? al-Hilaly left Iraq on the 6th, you know.
He did, he is in Kairo right now. But that doesn't mean his proxies couldn't have negotiated their way through this.
But that the Iraqis could actually find where they are hiding the guy, then march in there and shoot them all without killing the hostage, and then drive him to a safe location without US troops blasting bullets at their arses...so very unlikely...

"his proxies"?

The terrorists kept moving the goal posts, one day it was Australian withdrawal, the next total Coalition withdrawal.

and I don't see why it is unlikely. Its not like they're going to do it entirely on their own.

"his proxies"?
Yes, they called them his proxies. Or his one proxy, to be exact.
A mufti is quite an important personality, you know. Don't you think he could've found a bunch of people working for him. And he was in contact with local tribal chiefs who apparently knew the kidnappers (kidnapping is not exactly terrorism in my opinion) and was negotiating though them.

Kidnapping is terrorism where it is used to further a religious, and/or political cause, or to secure funding for it (ransom)

If you'd watched the 7:30 Report, you'd have heard the Foreign Minister saying that several terrorists have been detained. This is hardly going to happen if the terrorists had released him voluntarily.

Here's the transcript: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2005/s1393131.htm

If you'd watched the 7:30 Report, you'd have heard the Foreign Minister saying that several terrorists have been detained. This is hardly going to happen if the terrorists had released him voluntarily.
I was at work...
If he's right, I concede, but I don't believe anything that comes out of that man's mouth. The guy is about as talented with diplomacy as ... someone who isn't very talented (can't think of anyone).
I remember the time on dateline when he called the old commentator a "leftie" for asking questions about rendition and Habib. The man is a moron and overzealous in his weird ideology.