Only Interpreter Freed

Looks like Moqtada needs to improve his negotiation skills

BAGHDAD — An Iraqi interpreter kidnapped in the southern city of Basra was freed Wednesday, but the CBS journalist seized with him this week was still being held.

Amid reports of a deal to free both men, however, the American military and Iraqi officials both said they hoped that the journalist would be released shortly.

“We are hopeful they will be released in the coming days, if not hours,” a military spokesman, Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, told reporters here shortly before the interpreter was released.

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Earlier in the day, the man in charge of the Basra office of Moktada al-Sadr, an anti-American Shiite cleric, said his group had successfully negotiated the release of both men, though only the interpreter was freed.

“We will keep working, and we hope this matter will be over in the next 24 hours,” said the Sadr official, Hareth al-Ethari.

The details surrounding the kidnapping remained murky. The two men — a cameraman-photojournalist who worked for CBS News and his interpreter — were abducted Sunday from the Sultan Palace Hotel by men dressed as security officials, and there has been some suggestion by security officials that Mr. Sadr’s group may have had some connection with the kidnapping. Mr. Ethari has acknowledged that one of two men who security officials say have links to Mr. Sadr’s group, and possibly the kidnapping, was at the hotel at the time.

I was suspicious that Moqtada might not be as innocent as he pretends.