Incident: Women taken hostage by coalition forces

According to a report in the Guardian, some time within this week, Salima al-Batawi (60 yrs) and her daughter Aliya (26 yrs) will be taken from their home in Baghdad. Her three sons will return home to find their mother and sister missing, and the following note hand-written in Arabic and attached to their gate:

Be a man Muhammad Mukhlif and give yourself up and then we will release your sisters. Otherwise they will spend a long time in detention.
(signed: Bandit 6)

Rather than surrendering, the wise sons alerted the media, and after 6 days, their mother and sister were released without charge.

Salima al-Batawi said Americans threatened to hold her until her sons surrendered but treated her and her daughter with respect. "They carried out a professional investigation. We found beds with clean sheets and copies of the Koran and bottles of water in a big room".