| Eighteen Iraqi National Guard members held hostage have been released, the Arab television station Al-Jazeera said Monday. The station showed a videotape of men who were apparently the soldiers. The men had shed their combat fatigues and were now in traditional white robes, clutching Qurans. The announcer said that a member of the group holding the men, the Brigades of Mohammed bin Abdullah, read a statement that said the release came in response to a demand by rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The news reader also said that the statement offered a warning to all who cooperate with those it called the forces occupying Iraq. The group had threatened to kill the captives unless one of al-Sadr's aides was freed within 48 hours, the station said Sunday. U.S. and Iraqi forces detained the aide, Hazem al-Araji, in a weekend raid on al-Sadr's Baghdad offices. Al-Sadr denounced the abduction and called for the hostages release on Monday, a spokesman for the cleric said, adding that al-Sadr's followers had nothing to do with the kidnapping. |