Four Jordanian hostages wait at the house of a tribal leader after they were freed in a raid in Fallujah. (Reuters)

BAGHDAD, 5 August 2004 — Iraqis freed four Jordanian hostages in a raid on the kidnappers’ hide-out yesterday while a video from the captors said two Turkish hostages had also been released.

The news provided a moment of respite in the hostage crisis confronting Iraq’s interim government, but fighting between police and insurgents in Mosul that killed at least 20 people underscored the scale of the security challenge it faces.

One of the Jordanian hostages said he had been released with three other Jordanian truck drivers after a group of Iraqis stormed a house in the city of Fallujah late on Tuesday and freed them without firing a shot.

“When the brave people of Fallujah knew that we were held hostage they raided the house and rescued us last night. We are all safe,” one of the hostages, Ahmad Hassan Abu Jafaar, said by telephone. “We’re expecting to go back to Jordan today.”

A group calling itself the Death Squad of Iraqi Resistance said last Thursday it was holding the Jordanians to put pressure on their transport company to stop cooperation with US forces. Jafaar said the kidnappers had wanted money. A man wearing a black face mask gave a statement to reporters in Fallujah saying the kidnappers had decided to release the four men because they were supplying traders in Baghdad and there was no proof they were dealing with Americans.

The drivers had been carrying shoes and knitting machines imported by an Iraqi firm from the United Arab Emirates.

The Iraqi rescuers were sent by a council of local elders formed last month to battle crime and kidnapping in Fallujah, where the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi in Baghdad exercises only minimal authority.

Insurgents aiming to disrupt supplies delivered to US forces from neighboring countries have seized dozens of foreign drivers in the past few months, threatening to kill them unless their employers stop operating in Iraq or pay ransoms.

The Jordanians, seized nine days ago, were transferred to a hospital outside Fallujah, where they were waiting to be moved to the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad.

Al Jazeera television reported that a group linked to Jordanian militant Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi — whom Washington accuses of being an Al Qaeda ally — had released two Turkish drivers because their firm agreed to stop working in Iraq.

“Due to the Turkish firm’s decision to stop sending supplies to US forces in Iraq, the Tawhid and Jihad Group has decided to free the two Turkish hostages,” said a videotaped statement from the group broadcast on the Arabic satellite channel. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul confirmed the release: “This good news has made us happy,” he told the Anatolian state news agency.

On Sunday, two haulage firms said they were prepared to suspend operations in Iraq after the two Turkish drivers were seized. The militants had threatened to behead the pair within 48 hours unless their employees stopped working in Iraq.

The Kuwaiti employer of a group of seven truck drivers who were seized in Iraq — three Kenyans, three Indians and one Egyptian — called on the kidnappers to resume negotiations with Iraqi tribal leader Sheikh Hisham Al-Dulaymi.

Dulaymi, who has been the main mediator, said on Sunday that the kidnappers had asked him to withdraw. The hostage-takers say they want the firm to leave Iraq and compensation for families affected by airstrikes on Fallujah.

In the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi police and insurgents exchanged rifle and rocket-propelled grenade fire, killing at least 12 civilians and wounding scores of people, including several police and Iraqi National Guard officers.

City council officials said eight insurgents including one commander were killed during heavy street fighting in Iraq’s third-largest city, which had died down by late afternoon.

Earlier, hospital staff said an Iraqi man and a woman were killed and two people wounded in a roadside bomb blast aimed at a convoy of US armored vehicles in the city.

The group Army of Ansar Al-Sunna posted a statement on its website claiming responsibility for a bomb that killed three Iraqi national guardsmen in Baqubah this week and vowed more attacks on Iraqi forces protecting “occupying crusaders”.

— Additional input from agencies