Pick the version you like best:
1) U.S. troops manning a checkpoint Monday discovered four Egyptian technicians who had been kidnapped the day before in Baghdad, an Egyptian diplomat said. The four were freed and some arrests were made, he added.
2) Four Egyptian telecom engineers kidnapped in Baghdad have been released, Egyptian embassy sources and a spokesman for their company say.
“They were released this afternoon at around 6:30pm [local time],” Orascom spokesman Shamel Hanafi said.
“They are in good health and no ransom was paid. They should be leaving the country tomorrow early in the morning.”
3) U.S. forces in Iraq stormed a house in Baghdad on Monday and freed Egyptian telecommunications engineers kidnapped since Sunday, the head of their Egyptian parent company said.
Naguib Sawiris, chairman of Egypt’s Orascom Telecom, said U.S. forces raided a villa, possibly in the mainly Sunni al-Aadhamiya district, and freed two of the four Egyptians. The other two managed to escape on their own from a car they had been locked in, he added.
“All four are free,” Sawiris told Reuters by telephone from Algeria.
“Two were released when U.S. forces barged into where they were being held in Baghdad and the other two escaped on their own … The Americans caught one of the kidnappers,” he said.