Iranian, Egyptian hostages freed; 12 killed in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AFP) - An Iranian diplomat and an Egyptian telecom worker held for days by Islamic militants in Iraq were freed as 12 people died in fresh violence across the country.
US aircraft pounded the rebel dens of Fallujah and Sadr City late Monday, although there were no immediate reports of casualties.
There was no word on the fate of British hostage Kenneth Bigley as British Muslim leaders wrapped up a two-day mercy mission to Iraq to try to save the 62-year-old engineer whose two US colleagues were executed last week.
As US officials warned of a tough fight in the run-up to Iraq's scheduled January elections, the US military launched new air raids on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.
The operation targeted the city's northern neighborhood but no details were immediately available on the latest in a slew of attacks on the community, considered a safe haven for masterminds of the insurgency, including the most-wanted man in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
US helicopter gunships delivered the latest salvo to Shiite radicals in Baghdad's slum of Sadr City.
A representative of Shiite rebel Moqtada Sadr, whose movement claims Sadr City as its power base, called the raids "the most intensive ever" and said the strikes had cut power in the neighborhood of 2.5 million people.
Five people were killed in a separate airstrike earlier Monday in the Sadr bastion.
As kidnappings of foreigners soared out of control, Iranian diplomat Fereydun Jahani, who was abducted on August 4 along the road from Baghdad to the Shiite pilgrimage city of Karbala, was released.
"Their first claim was the non-interference of Iran in Iraq's internal affairs. When they understood that Iran had no such intentions and that we diplomats were here to serve Iranians living in Iraq, they decided to release me," Jahani told AFP from Iran's Baghdad mission.
Iran is reviled by hardliners among Iraq's ousted Sunni elite for its huge influence among the country's Shiite majority.
Meanwhile, in Cairo, an Egyptian official announced that one of six Egyptian hostages held in Iraq, Alaa Maqqar, has been freed and the others might be released within the next 24 hours.
No details were immediately available.
The six employees of the Egyptian telecom group Orascom were reportedly kidnapped along with two Iraq staff members between Wednesday and Thursday night.
Two leaders of the Muslim Council of Britain left Baghdad following a 48-hour mission aimed at establishing contact with the captors of the Briton Bigley.
There was no immediate word on why they had decided to wrap up their mission or what consultations they had since their arrival on Saturday night.
Bigley's brother Paul said he had received word the engineer was still alive but accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair of sitting idly by. He also said that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had intervened to try to save the hostage.
An Italian Muslim leader was meanwhile in the Jordanian capital ahead of a mission to Baghdad to lobby for the release of aid workers Simona Torretta and Simona Pari.
Jordan's King Abdullah II said in an interview with an Italian newspaper he thought the two women snatched from their Baghdad office on September 7 were still alive.
A day after US Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged the insurgency confronting US troops in Iraq was worsening, a US soldier was killed north of Baghdad.
His convoy was heading back from the site of a traffic accident, which had claimed the life of another soldier when insurgents opened fire, the military said.
North of the capital, five Iraqi farmers were killed and one wounded in a roadside bombing near the town of Baquba, police and witnesses said.
In the main northern city of Mosul, insurgents detonated a car bomb against an Iraqi national guard patrol, killing two guardsmen and wounding three, medics said.
The fledgling security force has been the target of relentless attacks in recent months and suffered a fresh blow to its reputation Sunday with the announcement a senior commander had been arrested on suspicion of collaborating with the insurgents.
The US army was plagued by its own credibility problems as two more soldiers were charged with the murder of an Iraqi civilian.
And in Washington, US private Lynndie England, photographed holding a naked prisoner by a leash at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, was ordered to face court martial on charges of conspiracy to mistreat prisoners, assault and indecent acts.