US troops held wives of suspects as hostages

US ARMY documents released yesterday revealed that troops have seized and jailed the wives of suspected Iraqi insurgents in the hope of “leveraging their husbands to surrender”.

In one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, a US intelligence officer reported. In the case of a second detainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the family’s door telling him “to come get his wife”.

The issue of female detentions in Iraq has taken on a higher profile since kidnappers seized US journalist Jill Carroll on January 7 and threatened to kill her unless all Iraqi women detainees are freed.