Two Turkish hostages released in Iraq

Two Turkish hostages were released by Iraqi militants on Sunday after the companies they worked for decided to pull out of Iraq to save their lives, semi-official Anatolia News agency reported.

Ali Daskin and Abdullah Ozdemir were abducted from a construction site in Iraq. In a footage aired Wednesday by private Turkish TV channels, the Iraqi militants threatened to killed the two men if their companies did not leave Iraq within 72 hours.

One day later, the two men's companies announced that they were withdrawing from Iraq.

Daskin and Ozdemir are at the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad and they are expected to return to Turkey on Monday, Anatolian said.

Iraqi militants have been engaged in a string of kidnappings during the past several months in a bid to drive out foreign individuals and companies working in Iraq.

Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite TV reported Friday that the bodies of two Turkish hostages had been found in the northern Iraqi town of Baiji.

The latest killings, if confirmed, brought to four the number of Turks who were known executed by their kidnappers in Iraq so far.

Source: Xinhua