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The Hostage NEW YORK, Sept. 25, 2005 “A guy’s standing there with a gun telling you, ‘Memorize this.’ I said what they told me to say.” Roy Hallums Hallums in an image taken from video released by insurgents Jan. 25, 2005. (Photo: AP /APTN) (CBS) Hostage-taking has become a continuous and insidious variety of terrorism in Iraq. About 200 foreigners, including more than a dozen Americans and thousands of Iraqis, have been abducted since the war started. Some hostages are killed, others ransomed. Roy Hallums was rescued. He was found virtually buried underground. Blindfolded, with his arms and legs bound,...

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP)--Roy Hallums, an American contractor who was kidnapped in Iraq and held for more than 300 days, says during a TV interview that his captives used beatings and a gun to force him to criticize the U.S. President in a video released to the public. Hallums, 57, describes his experience as a captured civilian contractor with " 60 Minutes" reporter Lesley Stahl on a segment that will air in the U.S. Sunday on CBS. It is the first interview Hallums has given since he was rescued by coalition troops from a 4-foot-high crawl space under a farmhouse on...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -- An American contract worker who was kidnapped in Iraq and held more than 10 months says in an interview that his captors kept him blindfolded and bound throughout the ordeal. Roy Hallums, 57, described his experience to "60 Minutes" reporter Lesley Stahl in a segment that will air Sunday on CBS. Hallums also said the motive behind his kidnapping was ransom but he refused to give his captors contact information for his family to spare them from having to negotiate. Hallums was rescued Sept. 7 by coalition troops from a 4-foot-high crawl space under a farmhouse....

BAGHDAD, IRAQ – The U.S. military, acting on a tip, raided a farmhouse Wednesday and rescued an American held hostage for 10 months. Roy Hallums, 57, a former Newport Beach resident, was "in good condition and is receiving medical care," a military statement said. The statement said the military had received a tip from an Iraqi prisoner. One of the first calls Hallums made was to his eldest daughter, Carrie Cooper, 29, of Westminster. Cooper answered the phone at 5 a.m., ready to admonish the telemarketer she believed was calling. Instead, she heard her dad's voice. "I was in shock,"...

TAL AFAR,Iraq - U.S. and Iraqi forces have encircled the insurgent stronghold of Tal Afar, and Iraqi authorities on Thursday announced the arrest of 200 suspected insurgents there - most of them foreign fighters. The Iraqi military said 150 of those arrested Wednesday in this town near the Syrian border were Arabs from Syria, Sudan, Yemen and Jordan. The joint forces have reported heavy battles on the outskirts of the city and several deadly bombings that have mainly killed civilians. Iraqi authorities reported most of the civilian population had fled the city, which is 260 miles north of Baghdad and...

A US contractor who was seized in Iraq last year has been freed by US-led forces, the US military has said. Roy Hallums and an Iraqi national were rescued from an isolated farmhouse south of Baghdad. "Mr Hallums is in a good condition and is receiving medical care," a US military statement said. Mr Hallums, 57, worked for a Saudi food contracting company when he was seized in an armed assault in the Mansour district of Baghdad on 1 November. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [end] 'Forever grateful' The statement said Mr Hallums and the Iraqi citizen were rescued at approximately 1120 local time...

AN AMERICAN contractor who had been held hostage in Iraq since November was rescued by US troops yesterday after a tip-off from an Iraqi detainee. Roy Hallums, 57, was found in an isolated farmhouse 15 miles south of Baghdad. In a telephone interview with CNN, Susan Hallums, his former wife, said that she had talked to Mr Hallums by telephone. “That’s the best phone call I’ve ever gotten,” she said. “It was just very, very early this morning and he called and said that he was free, and I said that’s just . . . our prayers were answered. It...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — American contractor Roy Hallums, who was taken hostage last November in Iraq, has been released, his ex-wife said Wednesday. "I can confirm he's been released," Susan Hallums, 53, told The Associated Press by telephone. "Considering what he's been through, I understand he's in good condition." Hallums, a 57-year-old worker for a Saudi company that does catering for the Iraqi army, was seized Nov. 1 along with two other foreigners after a gunbattle in the upscale Mansour neighborhood. An Iraqi guard and one attacker were killed.

An American contractor who had been been held hostage in Iraq since November has been rescued from captivity, his ex-wife said Wednesday. Roy Hallums called from Baghdad on Wednesday, Susan Hallums told CNN. A Web site devoted to the hostage said "Roy IS FREE!!!!!! 9/7/05." The U.S. military confirmed Hallums was rescued. "He said that he was well, and he was heading home soon," the ex-wife said. Speaking by phone from her home in California, she told CNN he said he had been "tied and bound" outside Falluja, a city in the western province of Anbar, in a farmhouse and...

CNN is reporting that Roy Hallums, an American contractor kidnapped in Iraq on 11/1/2004, has been freed. Details to follow....

The daughter of a man held hostage in Iraq for more than seven months has arranged to have an Arabic-language flier circulated in Baghdad offering a $40,000 reward. Amanda Hallums, 25, of Cordova, Tenn., said Friday that she resorted to the public appeal to the streets of Iraq because she remains confident her father, Roy Hallums, 56, is still alive. "I still have hope," she said. Hallums was taken hostage when a compound in Baghdad where he lived and worked was overrun by insurgents on Nov. 1. He had been working with a Saudi Arabian company that provided food to...

Former Hostage Has Advice for Memphis Man's Iraqi Captors 02/02/05 Southaven, MS - Thomas Hamill spent 24 days as a hostage in Iraq before he got a lucky break and escaped his captors. Today he told his story here in Southaven where he reminded us American soldiers are still fighting to keep all of us from sharing a similar fate. And Thomas Hamill wants everyone to know it. Why? because everything these people are working for, is at stake, our very way of life. That's why he says we must keep fighing terrorism, even though people like him sometimes pay...

CORONA, Calif. - The Rev. Jesse Jackson is using his diplomatic skills to help a Corona woman whose ex-husband was kidnapped in Baghdad three months ago and recently appeared in a video pleading for his life at gunpoint. Susan Hallums, 52, turned to Jackson after calling on politicians and President Bush to help free her ex-husband, 56-year-old Roy Hallums, who was kidnapped at his company office along with another man on Nov. 1 in Baghdad. "I feel so drained and this has given me more strength again to have more hope and faith," Susan Hallums said. Jackson, who has successfully...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An insurgent video distributed in Iraq (news - web sites) and seen by Reuters appears to show an American citizen being held hostage by militants and pleading for his life as a gun is held to his head. The 60-second video, seen on Tuesday, shows a man identifying himself as U.S. citizen Roy Hallams sitting against a black background with his legs crossed, anxiously rubbing his hands together as he appeals to the camera. "I have been arrested by a resistance group in Iraq. I'm asking for help because my life is in danger because it's been...