Hostage Pole freed in Iraq, but two Poles and four others die in explosion

On Tuesday six soldiers, two Poles, three Slovaks and a Latvian, died in an explosion in ammunition depot south of Baghdad in Iraq. At the same time Polish and American special forces freed Jerzy Kos, director of the Iraqi office of construction company Wrocławska Jedynka, who was kidnapped on June 1. "He was kept in very bad conditions, in the basement of a building where he was bitten by dogs. He feels fine, but he is psychologically shaken by his ordeal. The Polish Embassy is helping him," said the spokesman of Wrocławska Jedynka Andrzej Polaczkiewicz. He added that if Kos feels good enough, he might stay in Iraq to take care of the company's contracts. Despite the rescue, Tuesday was the saddest day in the history of multinational division under the command of Poland. (Rzeczpospolita, pp. A1, A6) M.M.