Black Watch rescues hostages

TWO Kenyan lorry drivers captured ten days ago outside the town of Az Zubayr, in southern Iraq, were rescued yesterday after British troops burst into the school where they were being held.

David Shira Mukaria and Jakubu Maina Kamau were kept blindfolded, with their hands and feet bound together, and denied food and water by the Iraqi militia who had seized them.

They were rescued by members of the Black Watch, the Scottish regiment which is now in control of Az Zubayr, near Basra, after a tip-off from locals. When the soldiers arrived in two Warrior armoured vehicles, they burst in to find the men cowering in one of the school’s classrooms. Their captors had fled.

The two men told The Scotsman they had spent their time as hostages praying for rescue or death, and listening to the Iraqis discussing whether or not to kill them. They were abducted after becoming separated from a food convoy heading for the southern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr.

British military officials initially described them as aid convoy drivers, but the men said they were lorry drivers returning after delivering food supplies to the United States military. They had got lost near Az Zubayr when other vehicles in the convoy switched off their lights and accelerated away about 11pm.

A man on the roadside flagged them down with a torch and then about 20 armed men appeared and dragged them from the cab. They were beaten, tied up and taken to the school, which was being used by the Iraqis as a weapons dump and military base. The two men, looking anxious and confused, were paraded on the al-Jazeera television network.

Mr Mukaria, 53, said they had been in a convoy of 18 lorries which had taken food to a US camp and were heading back to Camp Rhino in Kuwait.

He explained: "The other trucks finished unloading before us. On the way back we lost the way. The convoy switched off the lights and they were driving too fast."

He added: "They kept us there for ten days. We had no food or water, nothing. We decided, because we are Christians, that we would ask God to save us or take our souls to heaven. We prayed to God every day.

"We could not see them but we heard them talking. Some of them were speaking in English. Some of them said, ‘Kill them’, some of them said, ‘No’. We just prayed and prayed."

Mr Kamau, 37, who had rope burns on his wrists, said: "I was sure we were going to die. I remember seeing a man with his finger on the pin of a grenade as they argued about whether they would kill us or not.

"David and I are both Christians, and this morning I said, ‘We must pray together for a miracle’. So we prayed, and 30 minutes later the door swung open and there were two British soldiers standing there. God must have given them the power to save us. It really was a miracle that they came."

Corporal Stewart Robson, 38, of Newcastleton, Roxburghshire, and Lance-Corporal Gavin Dodd, 23, of Newcastle upon Tyne, were first into the building.

Cpl Robson said: "When we found them they were in darkness in a room which had all its windows blacked out. They said they’d been beaten and showed us the marks on their wrists where their hands had been tied."

L-Cpl Dodd said: "We’ve seen so much death and suffering out here; it was good to be involved in a story with a happy ending. The two men were overjoyed to see us."

Sergeant Bob Barnet, of the Black Watch, said: "We got a signal that two guys were being held in a building and had been kidnapped. We went to the place and searched the building."

Sgt Barnet, originally from Annan, in Dumfriesshire, said soldiers pulled up outside the school in Warrior armoured vehicles and ran into the building, kicking down doors, but found the men had been abandoned, along with a stockpile of weapons.

"When we found the men, they were happy to see the boys because they had had a stressful couple of days."

The two drivers worked for the Springfood company in Saudi Arabia, contracted to carry water and food supplies for the US military.

They were hoping to get back their lorry and their passports - and said they would return to Iraq if they could be guaranteed a better escort. "We are not afraid. We ask God to bless the people who took us," said Mr Mukaria.

Other British forces in southern Iraq were completing the encirclement of Basra yesterday. Troops and tanks of the Queen’s Dragoon Guards advanced to take control of a motorway leading north out of the city of 1.3 million people.

South-east of the city, a force of 1,000 Royal Marines from 40 Commando fought a 15-hour battle against Iraqi troops. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers were taken prisoner, including five senior officers. Before yesterday, British troops had secured only the western and south-western approaches to Basra, but the new advances mean that the city is almost completely surrounded.