Eight foreign aid workers detained by the Taliban on charges of spreading Christianity arrived in Islamabad on Thursday after their dramatic rescue from Afghanistan ( news - web sites ) by U.S. special forces.
They arrived at the Chaklala military air base in Islamabad after U.S. helicopters swooped at night into a field in central Afghanistan and lifted them to freedom.
The two Americans, two Australians and four Germans -- all working for German-based Shelter Now International (SNI) -- were whisked away in a motorcade, accompanied by ambassadors and officials of their countries.
"It was like a miracle," said Georg Taubmann, head of SNI in Afghanistan.
He said the aid workers had been taken by the Taliban during their retreat from Kabul and held in a prison in Ghazni, about 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Kabul.
The area came under heavy bombardment, Taubmann told reporters outside the German embassy in Islamabad, and then Northern Alliance fighters burst into the prison -- receiving a shock when they found the foreign detainees.
"This effort involved many people and several entities. U.S. forces performed the extraction well and the American people can be proud of them," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a statement.
"The detainees are now in Pakistan. They seem to be in good physical condition," the Pentagon ( news - web sites ) statement said.
Three Special Operations helicopters buzzed into a field near Ghazni and picked up the aid workers who had been in Taliban detention on charges of proselytizing since August 5, the Pentagon said.
After the Taliban spirited the eight out of the capital, Kabul, as they retreated from the city late on Monday, there had been fears they were effectively hostages and would be used as a human shield by the militia.
Few details of their release were available but one defense official said it was a result of "non-confrontational" negotiations between the Taliban and international agencies.
Some reports said they had effectively been swapped for Taliban fighters besieged in the enclave of Kunduz, the militia's last redoubt in the north of the country.
"Today we've got incredibly good news. Our United States military rescued eight humanitarian workers who had been imprisoned in Afghanistan," President Bush ( news - web sites ) said.
He said he had been worried that the Taliban would take the aid workers to a building that could have been bombed by the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan and had considered different ways they could be rescued.