Kidnapped UK journalist freed in Iraq

By Wisam Mohammed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A British journalist held for two months by kidnappers in the southern Iraqi city of Basra was rescued on Monday by Iraqi forces sweeping through the city in a crackdown on militants, the Iraqi military said.

Richard Butler, a photographer working for the U.S. network CBS, appeared in good health and high spirits after his release. Unknown militants had seized him and his interpreter from their hotel in Basra, freeing the interpreter a few days later.

"The Iraqi army stormed the house and overcame my guards and then burst through the door," said Butler, smiling broadly and surrounded by Iraqi officials on Iraqiya state television.

"I had my hood on, which I had to have on all the time. And they shouted something at me and I pulled my hood off."

In northern Iraq, a suicide attack and two car bombs killed 18 people. Among the dead were 12 members of Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga security force who were in a truck near the Syrian border when a car bomb exploded as they passed by, police said.

An explosion in central Baghdad's Tayaran Square killed five people and wounded nine, police said, while a roadside bomb attack on a U.S. patrol set a market ablaze.

CBS welcomed Butler's release. "We are incredibly grateful that our colleague, Richard Butler, has been released and is safe," the network said in a statement.

Lieutenant-General Mohan al-Furaiji, commander of Iraqi armed forces in Basra, said a special team had been set up to search for a policeman suspected of being behind the kidnapping.