Two French journalists ended their four-month hostage ordeal in Iraq and were expected to fly back home on Wednesday, while the United States pledged to defeat the "enemies of freedom" in Iraq following the Tuesday attack in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

A militant group in Iraq said the French journalists held since August had been released and sent to the French Embassy in Baghdad,the Arab-language Al-Jazeera satellite TV reported Tuesday. The French Foreign Ministry has confirmed the news.

The release came four months after Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale and Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaperwere kidnapped on Aug. 20 by a group calling itself the "Islamic Army of Iraq" when heading to the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, together with their Arab driver.

France later dismissed the demand of the group to revoke the headscarf ban in public schools.

French President Jacques Chirac's office said Tuesday Chirac expressed his "joy" over the release, and that he will break off Christmas vacation in Morocco and go back to Paris to greet the journalists.

A French air force plane, "probably a Falcon 900," is charged of bringing them back, the French Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

In another development, a militant group Ansar al-Sunna has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack on a US military base in Iraq's northern city of Mosul that killed at least 22 people and wounded more than 50 others, a website reported.

Ansar al-Sunna is believed to be a fundamentalist group whose goal is to turn Iraq into a tightly controlled Islamic state like Afghanistan's former Taliban regime.

The group said in a statement that the attack was a "martyrdom operation," referring to a suicide bombing, which targeted a mess hall in the al-Ghazlany camp, some 5 km south of Mosul.

However, a Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said unknown assailants pounded a US and Iraqi operation base in Mosul with rockets and mortars, adding that it was believed a dining hall at the base was struck.

The United States pledged on Tuesday to defeat the "enemies of freedom" in Iraq following the attack.

"As we move forward in helping the Iraqi people build a free and democratic future, the enemies of freedom seek to derail that transition, and it's important that we continue to go after the Saddam (Hussein) loyalists and the terrorists who want to turn back to the past," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

"They will be defeated ... They are being defeated," McClellan said.

Also on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed his hope that all Iraqis would take part in the Jan. 30 elections since the country was facing a "battle between democracy and terror."

"I hope it goes ahead on an inclusive basis," Blair, who paid a surprise visit to Iraq on Tuesday, told reporters in a joint press conference with the interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

"Whatever people's feelings and beliefs about the removal of Saddam Hussein, and the wisdom of that, there surely is only one side to be on in what is now very clearly a battle between democracy and terror," Blair said.

He said a successful staging of the elections would be a blow not only to Iraqi insurgents but also to world terrorism.

For his part, Allawi said his government was committed to holding the elections as scheduled on Jan. 30, 2005, despite calls for a postponement due to surging violence in parts of the country.

Blair's visit to Baghdad was the first since the toppling of Saddam in April 2003 and the third to Iraq after he visited the British troops stationed around the southern Iraqi city of Basra in mid-2003 and in January 2004.

Source: Xinhua