Two journalists of a US-based daily, who went missing last week while covering the war in Iraq were released by the Iraqi authorities apparently on the intervention of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Correspondent Matthew McAllester, 33, and photographer Moises Saman, 29, of the New York-based paper Newsday were released on Tuesday along with two other photographers Molly Bingham and Johan Rydeng Spanner.

"McAllester and Saman may owe their freedom in large part to the intervention of Arafat," Ed Abington, a former US consul general in Jerusalem, who is now a Washington-based adviser to the Palestine National Authority, said.

Abington said he had spoken twice with Arafat over telephone in the past few days and Arafat had agreed to help try free the journalists.

"Arafat then instructed one of his former ambassadors to Baghdad, Azama Al-Ahmad, to contact the head of Iraqi military intelligence, who confirmed the journalists were being held and then apparently helped order their release", he said.

Newsday editors had worked frantically to win their release, reaching out to everyone from the Vatican to the Iraqi Ambassador and from the United Nations to Arafat.

The reporters crossed over to Jordan later in the day from where McAllester telephoned his paper to say that they are safe and in good health.

A relieved Saman said, "We're in good spirits and happy to be safe and looking forward to a nice meal."

The journalists told their editors on Tuesday that Iraqi intelligence agents had detained them in a room at Baghdad's Palestine believing them to be American spies. "We thought we were going to be killed at any moment," McAllester said.

The two were handcuffed and taken downstairs by freight elevator. They were transported to Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, where they were kept until early Tuesday. Then the Iraqi authorities then drove them to the Jordanian border.

"The Palestinians played a very helpful role in this," Abington said.

PTI