Iraqi troops, backed up by US forces, freed an Australian hostage after more than a month in captivity, officials said Wednesday. The release came as a suicide bomber dressed in an Iraqi army uniform walked into an Iraqi mess hall and blew himself up, killing at least 25 Iraqi soldiers and injuring 27.

There were no details available on the operation in Baghdad that led to the release of Douglas Wood, a 64-year-old engineer, who was abducted in late April by a militant group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq.

The Australian Government refused to bend to the kidnappers' demands that Australia withdraw its 1,400 troops from Iraq. It sent a team of diplomats, police and military personnel to Baghdad to seek his release.

"I am delighted to inform the house that the Australian hostage in Iraq, Mr. Douglas Wood, is safe," Australian Prime Minister John Howard Wednesday told Parliament in Canberra.

"Mr Wood was recovered a short while ago in Baghdad in a military operation that I am told was conducted by Iraqi forces in co-operation in a general way with force elements of the United States," Howard said.

Iraqi legislators, meanwhile, seemed close to agreement Wednesday on a demand by Sunni Arabs for more participation in the effort to draft a constitution. Such an agreement would help defuse growing sectarian tension between the majority Shi'ites and the Sunnis. Insurgents blew up a pipeline near Baghdad late on Tuesday that transports crude oil between the domestic refineries of Beiji and Dora, a police officer said Wednesday.

In Khalis, 20 kilometers northwest of Baqouba, the suicide bomber walked into the crowded mess hall, Iraqi army Colonel Saleh al-Obeidi said. Baqouba is 60 kilometers northeast of Baghdad.

Al-Obeidi said the man was wearing an army uniform and waited until soldiers had gathered for lunch before blowing himself up. The soldiers belonged to the Al-Salam battalion of the 2nd brigade of the Iraqi army in Diyala Province.

(China Daily June 16, 2005)