Al-hamdu lillah!

Thank G-d! … That CPT-ers Norman, Harmeet, and James were all freed today… And freed, moreover, by troops who found them and released them without firing a shot.
CPT had requested firmly, all along, that the attempts to free their people not be accompanied by any resort to violence. Indeed, it seems quite possible, from the way their discovery and release operation was described in that AP story, that key elements of the operation had been discreetly negotiated in some way… Certainly, many many attempts at such negotiation had been pursued over the nearly four months of their captivity.
CPT has this lovely statement on their site.
I join with them when they say:

We remember with tears Tom Fox, whose body was found in Baghdad on March 9, 2006, after three months of captivity with his fellow peacemakers. We had longed for the day when all four men would be released together. Our gladness today is made bittersweet by the fact that Tom is not alive to join in the celebration. However, we are confident that his spirit is very much present in each reunion.

Also this:

During these past months, we have tasted of the pain that has been the daily bread of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Why have our loved ones been taken? Where are they being held? Under what conditions? How are they? Will they be released? When?

Next week, Monday and Tuesday, I’m going to be at a “US-Iraqi women’s summit” in NYC. Faiza al-Araji is going to be there, which will be great. She, of course, had her own story of having her son Khaled held in terrifying extra-legal detention in Iraq a few months ago.
So I’m thinking of the 12,000-plus Iraqis still held in extra-legal detention… and I’m thinking of the CSM’s plucky, wonderful Jill Carroll.
But it’s also great to know that those three 3 CPT-ers are safe, apparently not badly harmed, and will shortly be reunited with their families and friends. Thank G-d. And thanks, too, to the US and British troops who freed them “without firing a shot.”