Al-Sader offices broken into, hostages freed in Iraq

The Islamic army group in Iraq claimed in a recorded tape spoke of the burning of a truck transporting fuels for the American forces north of Baghdad. The fate of its driver was not known.

For his part, an assistant for the Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sader said that the American forces on Thursday evening broke into a station for the Sadri trend east of the capital Baghdad and detained all its working staff.

Prior to that, one American official announced freeing three western hostages from Christian Peacemaker Teams organization who were kidnapped in Iraq since November 2005. They were rescued by multinational forces the US said. The freed men are Canadians James Loney and Harmeet Sooden, and Briton Norman Kember. The hostage taker group calling itself "Soyouf al-Haq" (the swords of the rightful) claimed responsibility for the kidnapping which also had an additional American hostage Tom Fox of Virginia who was found killed two weeks earlier.

This came at a time when the Iraqi Islamic Party denounced in a statement the attack carried out by gunmen on Shiite visitors returning from Karbala city and claimed the life of 15 persons and injuring 46 others on Wednesday west Baghdad noting that this attack aims at provoking sectarianism among the Iraqis.

In this context, the Iraqi foreign minister Hoshiar Zebari denied Iraq's inclination towards a civil war. He said that the Iraqi leaders did not encourage their supporters to carry arms. He also added that the existence of the multi national force in Iraq constitute a deterrent for the eruption of a civil war.