US political and military leaders have welcomed the success of a special forces operation which rescued a wounded US soldier from the hospital where she was held captive in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya.Deaglán de Bréadún reports from Doha.
"That's great!" President Bush said when informed of the successful outcome by his Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld.
A presidential adviser described it as "a very good news development" which lifted White House spirits.
The rescued soldier was Pte First Class Jessica Lynch (19), from Palestine, West Virginia. She was with a maintenance convoy ambushed by Iraqi forces on March 23rd.
Speaking during a visit to Turkey, the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, said: "I am absolutely delighted, and it is a great joy to her family now that she is free."
The special forces mounted a decoy attack early yesterday morning as they rescued Pte Lynch who had been held captive for nine days. They also recovered 11 bodies at the scene, at least two of which were thought to be the remains of US soldiers.
Capt Jay La Rossa, spokesman for the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, said both of Pte Lynch's legs were broken, and she had also suffered a broken arm. All injuries were sustained prior to the rescue. Another report said she was suffering from gunshot wounds.
Brig Gen Vincent Brooks announced the rescue at US Central Command headquarters in Qatar at around 3 a.m. local time. Defence officials in Washington indicated that the information about her whereabouts came from Iraqi sources in Nassiriya.
Pte Lynch was one of 15 soldiers listed missing, captured or killed when a unit from the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company convoy came under attack. It is believed her section of the convoy took a wrong turn down a desert track.
The New York Times reported that Pte Lynch's unit - responsible for repairing broken-down vehicles - had come under attack from two Iraqi T-55 tanks and around 100 fighters believed to be from the Fedayeen militia.
Five of the captives, but not Pte Lynch, were shown on Iraqi television, as well as the bloodied bodies of up to eight others, prompting Mr Bush to warn Iraqis they would be punished as "war criminals" if they mistreated US prisoners.
A military source told a Reuters reporter travelling with the US Marines near Nassiriya that Pte Lynch had been held in the "Saddam Hospital", two kilometres north of the Euphrates river which runs through the city.
The US forces shot their way into and out of the building. There were no coalition casualties, Brig Gen Brooks said at a further news briefing yesterday afternoon.
He said ammunition, mortars, maps and a terrain model were found at the hospital, along with "other things that made it very clear it was being used as a military command post".
Two of the recovered bodies were found at a morgue in the hospital, while the nine others were in a local community burial spot. US forces were led to the grave site by someone who had been taken into custody.
Pte Lynch is being treated for her injuries at a US field hospital, but Brig Gen Brooks would not comment on her injuries.
In a green-tinted, night-vision video taken of the rescue operation, she was seen being put aboard a Black Hawk helicopter on a stretcher.
The rescuers were "loyal to the creed they know that they never leave a fallen comrade", said Brig gen Brooks.
Pte Lynch, who plans to be a kindergarten teacher, joined the army to get an education. She left a farming community with an unemployment rate of 15 per cent, one of the highest levels in West Virginia.
Also at the daily briefing in Doha, Brig Gen Brooks said that 50 oil-filled trenches were burning inside Baghdad, and bridges over the city's Saddam Canal had been rigged to explode.
He displayed reconnaissance photos of the city showing long plumes of black smoke coming from burning trenches.
He also claimed the Baghdad Division of Iraq's Republican Guard had been "destroyed" by US Marines in an attack near the town of Al Kut, a claim later denied by an Iraqi military spokesman.