Qatari hostages held since 2015 are freed

Members of ruling family among those kidnapped in Iraq

DOHA/BAGHDAD // Twenty-six hostages, including Qatar ruling family members, were freed yesterday after being held for 16 months by gunmen in Iraq. The men were handed over to Iraq’s interior ministry. No further details were given on the release of the hostages, who were taken in December 2015 while on a hunting trip near the border with Saudi Arabia.

Iraq verified the identity of the released men then handed them over to Qatar’s ambassador to Baghdad. Qatari state me- dia later confirmed the men had landed in Doha.

“Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, received Qatari nationals who were kidnapped in the Republic of Iraq on arrival at Doha International Airport this evening,” read a statement by the Qatar News Agency. About 100 armed men seized the group of Qatari hunters and associates at a desert camp for falcon hunters in southern Iraq. A Qatari royal and a Pakistani man were later freed.

The release of the remaining hostages came days after a deal was announced in Syria for the evacuation of Syrian civilians and fighters from four besieged towns, which Qatar reportedly helped mediate in exchange for freeing the hunters. The abduction led to months of negotiations between Iran, Qatar and the Lebanese Shiite group Hizbollah, according to an Arab diplomat in Doha.

Discussions about the Syria evacuations involving Iranian officials and Syrian rebel group Ahrar Al Sham were held in Qatar when Iran’s foreign minister visited on March 8, the diplomat said. Those discussions tied the deal to the freeing of the Qatari hostages, he said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction of the group, who were seized in a desolate expanse of territory dominated by militias who work with the neighbouring Shiite power Iran and have accused Doha of meddling in Iraq’s affairs.

There is hostility in Iraq, especially in the Shiite-majority south, towards Qatar’s stance on the Syrian civil war and perceptions that it is complicit in the rise of Islamist militancy.

Qatar, which is a member of the United States-led coalition fighting militants in Iraq and Syria, denies supporting extremist groups.

It had called on Iraq to take the lead in freeing the hostages since Baghdad had granted them permits to hunt there.

Iraq’s interior ministry said the hunters had failed to heed government instructions to stay within secured areas of the desert.