US troops buoyed by PoW's rescue

American troops were today searching for more US prisoners of war in Iraq after the daring rescue of a 19-year-old army supply clerk held for nine days in central city of Nasiriyah.

A dozen other members of Pfc Jessica Lynch’s 507th Maintenance Company remain unaccounted for after they were ambushed by Iraqi forces on March 23.

“We also have others, other POWs we are just as worried about,” Central Command spokesman Jim Wilkinson said. “This is good news today but we need a lot more good news.”

A rescue team made up of US marines and elite special forces commandos stormed the hospital in Nasiriyah after creating a distraction elsewhere. Lynch was said to have been carried out of the building in the first minutes of the raid.

Officials said she was “doing well” today after receiving medical treatment, reportedly for two broken legs and a broken arm.

US special forces also found the bodies of two US soldiers in the hospital, according to reports.

Lynch’s maintenance unit had been cornered by the Iraqis after taking a wrong turn in the city on the Euphrates River.

Five of her comrades were later seen on Iraqi television being interrogated by their captors. The video also showed dead bodies, apparently of US soldiers, which led Pentagon officials to accuse Iraq of executing some of the prisoners.

Lynch’s father Greg said he was not sure when his teenage daughter would be able to return to her home in Palestine, West Virginia.

Lynch had been listed as missing in action but was identified by the Pentagon yesterday as a PoW.

She was not among the seven US soldiers – including the five from the 507th shown on television – formally listed as prisoners of war.

Fifteen other Americans are formally listed as missing. The other POWs include two Army Apache helicopter pilots captured on March 24 after their helicopter went down south of Baghdad.

The 507th Maintenance Company was attacked during some of the first fighting in Nasiriyah, a key crossing point on the Euphrates where sporadic battles have raged since US troops first reached it.

The US soldiers and military officials have said much of the fighting there has involved members of the Fedayeen Saddam and other Iraqi paramilitaries who have dressed as civilians in order to ambush the Americans.

Lynch, an aspiring teacher, joined the army to get an education, her family said. She left a farming community with an unemployment rate of 15%, one of the highest in West Virginia.

More than 70 people gathered at Lynch’s parents’ home in the small farming community after the Pentagon announced the rescue.

“She is safe in a hospital, she is in good health,” her father said.