We're grateful to be back home - aid workers

Two freed American aid workers told today of their terror during months of Taliban captivity, their dramatic rescue at the hands of anti-Taliban troops and American special forces and their hopes for a free Afghanistan.

‘‘We’re so grateful to be back home,’’ 24-year-old Heather Mercer told a news conference in Islamabad a day after the group of eight Christian aid workers were whisked out of southern Afghanistan by helicopter.