New Zealand-born prisoner found safe in Iraq

7.00am

AS SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar - Seven American prisoners, including New Zealand-born James Riley, were found safe and well in Iraq on Sunday after their captors apparently fled from US Marines advancing on Saddam Hussein's crumbling northern bastion of Tikrit.

US officials said the group, comprising all seven people on the US list of prisoners of war in the Iraqi war so far, included five members of an ambushed army convoy and two pilots of a downed Apache attack helicopter.

The prisoners were found near Samarra, about 60km north of Baghdad on the Tikrit road and were flown to a US air base 90km south of Baghdad, and from there to Kuwait.

Three were given medical treatment there and then all seven were flown to an undisclosed destination. "They were happy, they were smiling, they were in good spirits," Lieutenant Colonel Ruth Lee, head nurse at the 47th Combat Hospital, told reporters.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on CBS television that two of them had gunshot wounds but added, "they're in reasonably good shape." News of the recovery sparked jubilation in their homes in the United States.

The Pentagon confirmed that they including the sole woman captive Spc. Shoshana Johnson.

"Someone came up to our Marines moving along the road from Baghdad headed for Tikrit and said, 'Here shortly you're going to come in contact with a number of Americans, just so you know,"' US war commander Gen. Tommy Franks told Fox television.

"The tip came from an Iraqi and I believe our guys picked them up on the road."

"The guards evidently were deserted by their officers, and the guards themselves brought the prisoners of war to the Marines," said Lt. Col. Nick Morano at Marine headquarters southeast of Baghdad.

As the former POWs arrived at the air base, a CNN reporter said one soldier raised a fist, another had his arm in a sling. Five of them ran out of a helicopter but two, apparently injured, walked slowly, including Johnson, who was limping.

"We are ecstatic that not only is she safe, but that all the POWs are in US hands," said her father, Claude Johnson, in a statement read on CNN by a representative for her family.

Johnson, 30, of El Paso, Texas was among five members of a 15-member army military maintenance company taken on March 23 when their convoy made a wrong turn in southern Iraq and was ambushed by Iraqi forces.

Also in that company was 19-year-old Pfc. Jessica Lynch, rescued from a Nassiriya hospital by US special forces on April 1 and now recovering from her wounds in a hospital in Washington.

The Pentagon confirmed the rescue of four others from the convoy -- Sgt. James Riley, 31, of Pennsauken, New Jersey; Pfc. Patrick Miller, 23, of Walter, Kansas; Spc. Joseph Hudson, 23, of Alamagordo, New Mexico; and Spc. Edgar Hernandez, 21, of Mission, Texas.

"I've been crying most of the morning. I'm just happy," said Shane Parker, the brother Patrick Miller.

The other two prisoners were pilots of the 227th Aviation Regiment from Fort Hood, Texas, Chief Warrant Officers Ronald Young Jr., 26, of Lithia Springs, Georgia and David Williams, 30, of Florida. Their Apache helicopter came down on March 23.

Riley, the grandson of a former US consul to New Zealand, left Auckland for America at the age of 10.

He holds joint US-New Zealand citizenship and still has close links with this country, including grandparents in Auckland.

"I am so pleased for their families and loved ones," President Bush said as he returned to the White House from the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland.

Ronald Young Sr told CNN after he viewed television footage of the rescued POWs, "I'm just ecstatic over what I see. Now he's been recovered. I can't think of a happier day in my life except when he was born."

After the army convoy was ambushed, Iraqi state television broadcast film of five captives, including Johnson, who nervously answered their captors' questions. Television also showed at least eight corpses.

The Pentagon said on Sunday 114 US troops had been killed in the war to date, 102 in hostile action. A total of 400 American troops have been wounded in action. The Pentagon also said that six US troops were listed as missing.

Young's mother, Kaye Young, thanked the US military for the rescue, and also thanked "the Iraqis who took good care of him," adding later, "We pray for Saddam Hussein, that his heart will be softened."

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war