Secret American hostage in Afghanistan freed

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A U.S. citizen who was held hostage for ransom in Afghanistan since mid-August was freed last week by U.S. special forces troops in a rare raid, according to Pentagon officials.

The unidentified American is a civilian who was working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on infrastructure projects when he was abducted. The U.S. government never announced the man's abduction, according to military officials who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to talk about the subject.

Officials would not say why the kidnapping was kept quiet, but speculated it was to prevent publicity that could notify captors of the search efforts.

The kidnapped American was held about 30 miles from Kabul in the Nirkh district of Wardak province, officials said.

They would not talk about the intelligence or methods used by the military to discover and free the American, but the officials said his captors in the compound were killed in the raid.

Military officials said they did not know if the abductors were Taliban but said hostage-taking for ransom money is a source of revenue for the terrorist group.

U.S. military officials would not offer further details of the raid to protect the tactics used in such rescue missions.

Both Taliban and other nonterrorist criminals have abducted aid workers and wealthy locals in Afghanistan for money in the past. Many have been freed after ransoms were been paid.

It is very rare for the U.S. military in Afghanistan » to conduct a hostage raid, military officials said.

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