DHAKA: Two truck drivers from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka who were kidnapped by militants in Iraq in October have been released by their captors, officials said.

"Our embassy in Kuwait informs us both men are free," Bangladeshi State Minister for Overseas Employment Mohammad Quamrul Islam told AFP on Friday (Dec 10).

He said arrangements were being made for the return home of Abul Kashem, 42, and his Sri Lankan colleague, Dinesh Dharmendran Rayaratnam, 36.

"We are delighted at the news," Islam added.

Sri Lanka's foreign ministry confirmed its national had been freed. Officials of the two countries declined to say how or when the men had been released.

Kashem's family, at his home village of Jeetpur in the southeastern Feni district, were overjoyed at the news.

"I feel so happy and grateful that my husband has come back from the door of death," his wife Naznin Akhter told AFP.

"Since he was kidnapped we have been in mental torment. We are overjoyed that he has been released," added Kashem's brother Abu Tayeeb.

The two men were captured en route to a US base. Al-Jazeera television showed footage of them and said they were being held by the Islamic Army in Iraq.

Truckers have been a favourite target of militant groups in Iraq, with many taken hostage over the past few months to try to force their companies out of the country. In some cases, ransoms have been paid to win their release.

An Islamic Army statement, as quoted by Al-Jazeera, said "the two hostages were abducted before driving their trucks into a US base in Iraq...and were being interrogated in the religious (Islamic) court."

The group is still believed to be holding two French journalists who were abducted south of Baghdad on August 20 with their Syrian driver. It also kidnapped and killed an Italian journalist.

The kidnapping had sparked surprise in Bangladesh, the world's third largest Muslim-majority nation which opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq. It has repeatedly said it would only send troops to Iraq under UN auspices.

Every year some 200,000 Bangladeshis go abroad in search of work, driven by desperate poverty and unemployment at home. But Bangladesh's ministry for overseas employment had not approved any permits for workers to travel to Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

The release of the captives followed appeals by their families and the governments of the two nations.

"My husband is the only shelter that I have in this whole world and I want him to be back with us," Kashem's wife had said after his abduction.

Dorina Rita, spouse of the Sri Lankan hostage, delivered a tearful televised appeal for his release earlier this month.

She said her husband had gone abroad "to give his family a better standard of life. Since his kidnapping, we -- my children and me -- are in need. I beg you, return him to us. We cannot live without him."

Courtesy Agence France Presse