In Sadr City, the vast Baghdad slum that is a stronghold of Moqtada Sadr, U.S. forces fought running battles with militiamen loyal to the rebellious Shiite cleric. The fighting became so pitched that ground commanders summoned fighter jets and tanks to target concentrations of militiamen. Hospital officials said 17 Iraqis were killed and 102 were wounded in the fighting.
Zarqawi's group, Monotheism and Jihad, has demanded that all women be freed from the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad and another U.S.-run detention facility near the southern port city of Basra. U.S. officials have said that they are holding only two Iraqi women: Taha and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, a biological scientist dubbed "Mrs. Anthrax" by the U.N. inspectors. The other women in custody are being held by the Iraqi government in Iraqi-run jails.
Kenneth Bigley, a Briton, is shown on video pleading for his life after two colleagues were beheaded.
(Internet Image Via AP)
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Transcript: Washington Post Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran answers questions about the latest news out of Iraq.
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Early Wednesday, a Justice Ministry spokesman, Noori Abdul-Rahim Ibrahim, announced that "Iraqi authorities have agreed with coalition forces to conditionally release Rihab Rashid Taha on bail." His statement fueled optimism among Bigley's family that the hostage might escape the fate of his American colleagues.
Later in the day, Iraq's national security adviser and a state minister, Qasim Dawood, said that Iraqi judges had ordered the conditional release of three prisoners in U.S. custody, including one of the two women, presumably Taha. Dawood said at a news conference that the release would be conditional and would not happen "today, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow."
"Iraqi judges decided to release them because they didn't have any evidence," he said.
But after Dawood's news conference, Allawi said in an interview with the Associated Press in New York that no decision had been made to free any prisoners. "We have not been negotiating and we will not negotiate with terrorists on the release of hostages," Allawi said. "No release takes place unless I authorize it."
U.S. officials said all three Iraqi officials, including Allawi, were misinformed. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said that the women remained in the "legal and physical custody" of the United States. Another U.S. official said the final decision on whether to release the women -- or any other detainees in U.S. custody -- rests with the U.S. military, not with Allawi or Iraqi judges.
Although the United States has transferred legal custody of a dozen detainees, including former president Saddam Hussein and senior members of his administration, to the interim Iraqi government, there are still 85 detainees in U.S. military custody in Iraq considered "high-value," said a U.S. official familiar with detention issues who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
In mid-July, U.S. and Iraqi officials began a special review process to determine whether some of those detainees could be released, the official said. The initial screening involved the U.S. military, the CIA and other U.S. government agencies, the official said.
The official said the process identified 14 individuals who could be released without posing a continuing threat. Taha was among them.
The recommendations were given to the prime minister's office and the Iraqi Justice Ministry last week for review, the official said. This week, the official said, the interim Iraqi government concurred with the recommendations to release the 14 detainees on the grounds that they did not pose a continuing threat, the official said.
The official said recommendations still need to be approved by the Pentagon and by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the overall U.S. military commander in Iraq.
Correspondent Daniel Williams in Cairo and staff writer Steve Fainaru and special correspondents Naseer Nouri and Khalid Saffar in Baghdad contributed to this report.
