Iraqi forces supported by American troops freed an Australian engineer who had been held for six weeks by insurgents in Iraq, Prime Minister John Howard said Wednesday. "I am delighted to inform the House that the Australian hostage in Iraq, Douglas Wood, is safe," Howard told Parliament in Canberra. "Wood was recovered a short while ago in Baghdad in a military operation that I am told was conducted by Iraqi forces in cooperation in a general way with force elements of the United States," Howard was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. He did not elaborate on the nature of the military operation. Wood, a 64-year-old engineer who is a longtime resident of California and is married to an American woman, was abducted in late April.
