Kidnapped U.S. contractor found safe...~Super Princess~

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An American contractor, missing since a convoy attack last month, was recovered and is in good health after escaping from his captors, U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt announced Sunday.

Kimmitt identified the man as Thomas Hamill, 43, of Macon, Mississippi, who was seen in Australian news video broadcast shortly after his capture.

"He came out of a building and identified himself to American forces," Kimmitt said. "This is a preliminary report that we have that indicate it was an escape from the building.

"When he saw the American forces he identified himself and was subsequently recovered."

Hamill is a contractor with Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of oilfield services contractor Halliburton Co.

Kellie Hamill, the contractor's wife, expressed relief and thanks upon hearing the news.

"I feel great," she told Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, radio station KDKA on Sunday. "I've got to go pray, I'm so thankful. I feel wonderful. This is the best feeling I've had. I am so ecstatic. I just want to thank everybody who has prayed and sent their prayers to us. Thank you all so very much."

Kellie Hamill said she was trying to keep her phone line open so she could speak with her husband as soon as possible.

Thomas Hamill went missing on April 9 with two still-missing U.S. soldiers, after their fuel convoy was attacked near Baghdad International Airport.

Kimmitt said Hamill was recovered south of Tikrit, some 100 miles away from his capture site.

Dozens of foreign nationals have been held hostage in Iraq in recent weeks with most of them released.

Currently, at least five people are believed to be held including a U.S. soldier and three Italians. At least six more are reported as missing or status unknown.

Meanwhile, coalition forces are reported to have killed a deputy of Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric whose militia has launched an uprising against U.S.-led troops.

Four other associates died in Saturday's raid on the cleric's Hillah offices along with Adnan al-Anbaky -- al-Sadr's top deputy in the central Iraq town, according to an al-Sadr spokesman in Najaf, Sayid Hussam al-Hassani.

Al-Hassani said on Sunday the offices in Hillah, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Baghdad, housed a human rights organization run by al-Sadr.

The coalition's top civilian administrator, Paul Bremer, has accused al-Sadr of "attempting to establish his authority in place of the legitimate authority of the Iraqi government and the coalition."

However, the U.S. military is continuing to try to broker a deal with al-Sadr, who is reported to be holed up with his militia in a mosque in Najaf.

A spokesman for the cleric, who is wanted for questioning in connection with the killing of a rival cleric last year, said on Saturday he received a delegation of community and tribal leaders in an effort "to solve the current situation peacefully."

Meanwhile, the U.S. military said two U.S. soldiers and two members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps forces were killed Sunday morning in a roadside bomb attack in northwest Baghdad.

The senior military spokesman also reported two other soldiers were killed Saturday evening in the southern city of Amara when insurgents fired on a convoy with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.

The deaths took the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003 to 745 -- 541 in combat and 204 in non-hostile incidents.

On Saturday, an outraged British Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned published photos of British soldiers allegedly abusing Iraqi prisoners.

The Daily Mirror newspaper published the photos in its Saturday edition and displayed four on its Web site. The top image shows an apparent soldier urinating on a hooded detainee.

"After an eight-hour ordeal, he was left barely conscious and close to death," according to the Mirror. The captive was beaten before being thrown from a moving truck, its report said. "No one knows if he lived or died."

British troops control the Basra region in southeast Iraq, where the Iraqi captives were said to be held.

Public viewing of the photos followed international outrage over other photographs that apparently show Iraqi prisoners at a U.S.-run prison -- many of them naked -- in humiliating positions, some with smiling American military police posing beside them.

The inmates were held at Abu Ghraib prison.

The photos from Abu Ghraib prison that were shown on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya and the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera channels were first broadcast Wednesday on CBS' "60 Minutes II" and have led to charges against six U.S. soldiers, according to the military.

British Army commander Gen. Sir Michael Jackson, speaking on behalf of Britain's minister of defense, said he was aware of the allegations and the ministry has launched an investigation.

Blair, in Dublin, Ireland, for European Union celebrations honoring its 10 new members, said, "Let me make it quite clear that if these things have actually been done, they are completely and totally unacceptable.

"We went to Iraq to get rid of that sort of thing, not to do it. If these things have happened they've got to be condemned utterly."

"I think in fairness, however, we should say that there are thousands of British troops in Iraq doing a very brave, extraordinary job on behalf of the Iraqi people and on behalf of our country to make the country better," Blair said.

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