Rescued US hostage flies home from Iraq

Former hostage Roy Hallums – who was rescued on Wednesday from an isolated farmhouse near Baghdad – left Iraq for the US today, the military said.

He flew out of an US Air force base at Balad aboard a C-17 transport plane, a statement said. It provided no further information on his travel plans.

Hallums, 57, was working for the Saudi Arabian Trading and Construction Co., supplying food to the Iraqi army, when he was kidnapped on November 1.

He was seized along with two other foreigners after a firefight in the upscale Mansour neighbourhood. An Iraqi guard and one attacker were killed. A Filipino, a Nepalese and three Iraqis also were abducted but later freed.

He was rescued by US troops from a farmhouse 15 miles south of Baghdad. His abductors fled without a fight.