Kidnapped college students freed

A group of at least 40 students kidnapped by gunmen yesterday near the northern city of Mosul have been freed by Iraqi security forces, police said.

"The kidnapped students have been freed by the Iraqi army and police," said Brigadier-General Khalid Abdul-Sattar, security spokesman in Iraq's Nineveh province, where Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, lies.

Earlier, he said 42 male university students had been seized, one of the biggest mass abductions since the US-led invasion in 2003. He later said the total number of students captured had been 40.