One rebel was killed and two captured in the rescue.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on whether the two captured fighters were Russian servicemen.
The two captured kidnappers provided the location of the other kidnappers and their prisoners, The A.P. said.
Military officials said that two captured Iraqi generals were providing information about a suspected chemical weapons facility in Najaf, where American forces today secured a suspected chemical factory.
Described in vivid detail by two captured Qaeda operatives who helped plan the attacks, the plot was more troubled and improvisational than had been previously understood.
The assault on Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas this summer drove them from Israel's northern border but failed to retrieve two captured soldiers.
RIVERSIDE, Calif., Aug. 16 (AP) — A former Marine sergeant has been charged with voluntary manslaughter in the killings of two captured Iraqi insurgents in Falluja in 2004.
At a police station here in Rogeban, rebels detained two captured pro-Qaddafi soldiers in a narrow, windowless room furnished only with two bare and ripped foam mattresses.
A picture caption last Nov. 13 with an article about the American-led military assault on insurgents in Falluja, Iraq, misidentified the soldier shown standing over two captured men.
Nonetheless, Beirut today recalled its ambassador to Washington after he said on television that Israel should consider a prisoner exchange to ensure the release of the two captured soldiers.
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, confirmed that the group would hand over two captured Israeli soldiers and information on Ron Arad, an Israeli airman missing for two decades, in exchange for five Lebanese prisoners in Israel.
