BAGHDAD, 16 June 2005 — In one of the bloodiest days witnessed in Iraq, two suicide bombings killed 31 people yesterday, including 23 at an Iraqi army base canteen, on a day when an Australian hostage was freed after being held for almost six weeks.

The attack at the army base was triggered by a man, dressed in an Iraqi Army uniform, by blowing himself up in Khales, a town northeast of Baghdad, sources said. Twenty-three people were killed and 29 wounded, most of them soldiers, said a local council member Samira Shibli.

In an another attack later in the day, eight policemen were killed and vehicles left ablaze when a bomber targeted their patrol in southern Baghdad sources said.

Earlier in the day, there was brief glimmer of good news when kidnapped Australian Douglas Wood was rescued by Iraqi forces, who were acting on a tip-off, in Baghdad’s northwestern Gazaliyah neighborhood. In an operation that took insurgents and even Australian authorities by surprise, an Iraqi military unit freed the 63-year-old US-based engineering contractor and took some militants captive.

“I am delighted to inform the House that the Australian hostage in Iraq, Douglas Wood, is safe,” Australian Premier John Howard told the Parliament, and the world.

Wood was kidnapped April 30 by a rebel group calling itself the Shoura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq, which initially demanded that Australia pull its 800 troops out of Iraq.

Howard said no ransom had been paid and the drama had not affected Australia’s commitment to the US-led campaign in Iraq. Wood’s release came just days after French journalist Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi interpreter Hussein Hanun were freed after being held for five months by militants.

Brig. Gen. Jaleel Khalaf Shewi, commander of the 1st Iraqi Brigade that includes the squad that made the rescue, said his troops had been told of suspect activity in the house and had organized a cordon and search operation.

Once inside they heard English being spoken and discovered Wood under a blanket with his hands bound. Asking who the man was they were told by those holding him: “This is our father”. Iraqi contractor Saed Rasul was freed at the same time.

In northeast Baghdad, meanwhile, several British soldiers were wounded, one seriously, when a roadside bomb exploded in the path of a British military vehicle, US Lt. Jamie Davis said.

Iraq’s Defense Ministry also announced the arrest of Abed Dawood Suleiman, believed to be a military advisor to Jordanian extremist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, Iraq’s most wanted man.

A US Marine was killed Tuesday near the flash point city of Fallujah, bringing to 17 the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq over the past week, amid calls in the United States for a timetable for a troop withdrawal.

In another development, the special court charged with trying Saddam Hussein and members of his regime released a videotape yesterday of the questioning of the ousted leader’s half-brother Sabawi Ibrahim Al-Hassan.

Sabawi was captured in late February and believed to have played a pivotal role in financing the insurgency which rages on more than two years after the regime’s fall.

— Additional input from agencies.