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Iraq official: 5 female captives to go free

Two German engineers kidnapped in Iraq; four U.S. troops killed

• No jail time in general's death

• Father pleads for his daughter

• Iraqis graduate army academy

• German engineers kidnapped

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An Iraqi official said Tuesday that five female prisoners in U.S. custody are to be released in two days -- a move that would partially meet the demands of militants who abducted U.S. journalist Jill Carroll.

Muslims and non-Muslims across the globe have called for Carroll's release, including Hamas -- a group considered a terror organization by Israel and the United States

Saeed Syam, a top Hamas official in Gaza, said the group "joins those who ask to release American citizen Jill Carroll" and stressed "we have declared many times we are totally against kidnapping civilians."

"Hamas is against the kidnapping of innocent people, of foreigners who are guests in the Arab countries, and those who introduce humanitarians [sic] services and help for the Arab people -- and for any people in general -- especially when they are not interfering in internal Arab affairs," he said in a statement posted on the Web site of the Christian Science Monitor, for whom Carroll worked in Iraq as a freelancer.

In a video first aired last Tuesday, Carroll's kidnappers said she would be killed unless all female prisoners in U.S. detention were freed, and set a 72-hour deadline.

The deadline passed with no word on Carroll, who was abducted January 7, or any public extension to the deadline.

Bosho Ibrahim Ali, a deputy justice minister, last week told CNN there were nine female prisoners in U.S. custody.

He told CNN Tuesday that the U.S. military on Thursday will release 424 prisoners, including five women. Ali said the other four might be released with another group at another time.

Last week, Ali said he had started his effort to free the female detainees before Carroll was taken hostage. He said he was doing so for humanitarian reasons.

Pentagon officials last week said they were not aware of any plans by the U.S. military to release female Iraqi prisoners held by U.S. forces in Iraq.

Meanwhile, gunmen dressed like members of the Iraqi army kidnapped two German engineers in Baiji on Tuesday morning, an official with the Salaheddin Joint Coordination Center told CNN.

According to the official, the engineers were headed to work at a detergent factory on the grounds of the Baiji oil refinery when they were abducted around 8:15 a.m.

A special crisis team had been set up to deal with the abduction, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.

Blast kills U.S. troops

Four U.S. service members died in Iraq on Monday, according to U.S. military reports.

Two Multi-National Division-Baghdad soldiers were killed when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in southeastern Baghdad.

One soldier died at the scene and the other died en route to a military hospital.

On the northern outskirts of Baghdad, two U.S. Marines died in an accident near Al Taqaddum Monday, a U.S. military statement said.

They were assigned to II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) and were killed in a non-combat vehicle accident.

Since the start of war, 2,235 U.S. troops have died in Iraq.

Saddam trial delayed

The former U.S. attorney general now serving as a legal adviser for Saddam Hussein said the latest delay in the former dictator's war crimes trial Tuesday provides "further evidence and strong evidence that the court's dysfunctional."

The attorney, Ramsey Clark, asserted that the court should be "abandoned."

"The trial has never been on track," Clark said in an interview on CNN, disputing what he said was President Bush's recent remark that the trial was on track. (Full story)

"What you have is pure chaos," Clark said.

The trial -- which began in October -- was to resume Tuesday, but was delayed until Sunday because witnesses couldn't show up for the proceeding, the court said. The court said they had been away on the Hajj, the holy Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca that ended earlier this month.

Other developments

Police said they believe the discovery Tuesday of 16 bodies was related to the abduction of Sunni Arab men in northwestern Baghdad. On Sunday, men dressed as Iraqi police commandos had taken the Sunnis at gunpoint.

A suicide car bomber blew up at an Iraqi police checkpoint Monday near the city's heavily fortified Green Zone, killing at least three people, an official with the Baghdad emergency police said. At least seven other people were wounded in the explosion, which was not far from the Iranian Embassy, the official said.

Two "serving Iraqi policemen" and "another Iraqi male" were arrested in Basra as part of an effort to fight police corruption in the southern Iraqi city, the U.S. military said Tuesday, adding that British and Danish troops were involved in the operation. The British military, meanwhile, told the Associated Press that its forces and Iraqi troops had detained 14 people in Basra. (Full story)

CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq and Shelby Lin contributed to this report.

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