UPDATE: This post to be updated throughout the day.

Update 13:19: Members of his extended family have now confirmed to me, personally, that Roy has been freed. They are elated. Family members are en route to a reunion with Roy as we speak. Thank you for your prayers and thanks to the Coalition Forces for rescuing Roy.

Many of Roy's family and friends, though, know only as much as they are being told in the media. If you have any tips about information that we are not covering, please e-mail me at mypetjawat-at-gmail-dot-com (remove 'at' and 'dot' and replace).

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Roy Hallums was abducted on Nov. 1st along with several other foreign contractors. The U.S. state department refused to comment on whether there was an American hostage in Iraq. On Nov. 30th, The Jawa Report reported that an American hostage was being held in Iraq. On Dec. 2nd, Roy's daughter Carrie and his ex-wife Susan contacted The Jawa Report confirming that Roy was taken hostage in Iraq and clarifying his name.

Since that time we have run dozens of stories on Roy and the other forgotten hostages in Iraq. We have also tried to raise funds for the Free Roy Foundation. I have personally been in contact with the Hallums family since our initial story ran. In the last few months I have feared that Roy was dead, but every so often I would get an e-mail from Susan reminding me to keep Roy in my prayers. Her faith, and the faith of Roy's daughters and grandchildren, never waivered.

I have not heard from Susan or Carrie yet, but I expect some word in the near future. While I am not an official spokesperson for the Hallums family, I am sure that Susan and Carrie would express their many thanks for your prayers and support throughout these trying months.

Thank you Jawa Report readers and friends. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

--Rusty Shackleford

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Cnn: Is reporting that Roy Hallums has been rescued. Details later. This really is good news.

Developing.

Roy Hallums, the U.S. contractor who was kidnapped in November, is rescued in Iraq, ex-wife says. Details soon.

Hat Tip: Filthy.

Also here on FOXNEWS

"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."

Update 11:56: NYTimes, hat tip Lawhawk. It looks like Roy was freed thanks to a tip from a detainee. Guantanamo? Probably not, but Abu Ghraib is a distinct possibility:

Coalition forces acting on a tip from an Iraqi detainee Wednesday rescued American hostage Roy Hallums from an isolated farm house south of Baghdad, a military statement said. An Iraqi also was rescued....

Hallums was held in a farmhouse 15 miles south of Baghdad, the statement said, adding that rescuers were tipped to his whereabouts by an unidentified Iraqi detainee.

''I want to thank all of those who were involved in my rescue -- to those who continuously tracked my captors and location, and to those who physically brought me freedom today,'' Hallums said in the military statement.

''To all of you, I will be forever grateful. Both of us are in good health and look forward to returning to our respective families. Thank you to all who kept me and my family in their thoughts and prayers.''

Related:
-The Free Roy Website, run by Roy's daughter Carrie
-Jawa Report Breaks Roy Hallums Story, Hallums family begins correspondence
-Terrorist release Roy Hallums hostage video.
-The Damned of the West Part I: Interview with the family of Roy Hallums
-The Damned of the West Part II: Interview with the family of Roy Hallums
-The Damned of the West Part III: Interview with the family of Roy Hallums

UPDATE II: More from CNN. CNN:

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 cannot walk well.

Otherwise, he said he is doing OK, she told CNN.

Susan Hallums said Roy Hallums first called his daughter Amanda in Memphis, Tennessee, and told her, "I was rescued. I love you. I am sorry I'm a little late for Thanksgiving."

Former hostage Roy Hallums' ex-wife said she told him ``our prayers were answered'' after he called from Iraq with news that he had been rescued by the U.S. military 10 months after he was kidnapped.

``I was just telling him about what was going on,'' Susan Hallums told CNN. ``He didn't know about New Orleans. ... He was very sorry for all the people there.''...

``It was just so wonderful to hear his voice,'' Mrs. Hallums told CNN. ``My little granddaughter that's 8-years-old, she talked to him and told him she had a celebration in her head.''

She said the family was hoping he'll be home this weekend.

``Thank God that our prayers were answered and that God saw him through this ordeal, and he's going to be coming back and he said he didn't want to be anywhere else, he wanted just to stay home,'' she told CNN.

Hallums' daughter, Amanda Hallums, 24, of Cordova said Wednesday morning that she couldn't talk to a reporter because she was awaiting the imminent arrival of an FBI team at her home. Amanda Hallums has consistently said she believed her father was alive and earlier this year arranged for Arabic-language fliers to be distributed in Iraq promising a $40,000 reward for his release [images of the flyer at bottom of this post].

Roy Hallums's former wife, Susan, and daughter Carrie organized a prayer vigil coinciding with Hallums's birthday on the beach in Southern California in June and have been operating a web site seeking his release.

When former hostage Roy Hallums called his daughter early Wednesday from Iraq with news of his rescue, he apologized for causing her so much grief and pain.

"He apologized to me for putting me through any hardship," his eldest daughter, Carrie Anne Cooper, 29, said in a telephone interview from her Westminster home. "He got to say he was sorry, and I got to say I loved him. We got to say things we never thought we would be able to say."

Coalition troops rescued Hallums Wednesday in an isolated farmhouse 15 miles south of Baghdad, according to the U.S. military. He told his family the kidnappers escaped without a gunbattle.

Hallums had been bound and gagged for much of his time in captivity, but doctors gave him a "clean bill of health" after the rescue, Cooper said. He planned to return to the United States within days.

"I've been waiting for this day, hoping for this day for a long time," Cooper said.

Posted by: Howie at 10:50 AM | Comments (41) | Add Comment
Post contains 1271 words, total size 9 kb.

1 Praise Jebus!

Posted by: Filthy Allah at September 07, 2005 10:54 AM (5ceWd)

2 See that bad luck streak is about over. I feel much better still snotty but this is great news.

Posted by: Howie at September 07, 2005 11:00 AM (Wwjxq)

3 Man, this is horrible news for the leftards!

Posted by: Improbulus Maximus at September 07, 2005 11:13 AM (0yYS2)

4 Awesome Rusty! Glad to hear that he is in "good condition" and I can't even imagine how his family must feel. Say hello to cloud freakin 9!

Posted by: tyler at September 07, 2005 11:16 AM (Y9Lwb)

5 Nice. Reminiscant of when Terry Anderson was finally released, only better because he was rescued.

Posted by: Defense Guy at September 07, 2005 11:24 AM (jPCiN)

6 AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Rusty at September 07, 2005 11:25 AM (JQjhA)

7 This is really good news. I would support a fundraiser, so he can do like that Swedish guy and hire some "payback" guys to go out and hunt-down his abductors and finish them off.

Posted by: -keith in mtn. view at September 07, 2005 11:34 AM (lKqPU)

8 WELCOME BACK ROY! The rescue story should be good. Looking forward to reading it here.

Posted by: Brad at September 07, 2005 11:34 AM (3OPZt)

9 Excellent news - the NYT has more, including that the tip came from an Iraqi detainee, which led to a farmhouse outside Fallujah.

Posted by: lawhawk at September 07, 2005 11:34 AM (AcoYr)

10 Glad to hear.

Posted by: Will Franklin at September 07, 2005 11:36 AM (MswRc)

11 Forgot to include the NYT link: Coalition Forces Rescue U.S. Hostage in Iraq

Posted by: lawhawk at September 07, 2005 11:36 AM (AcoYr)

12 great! we rescued one person in iraq, while an estimated 10,000 float down Bourbon Street in the richest country in the world! yeah, us 'leftards' are really disappointed this guy got resuced, since we hate america so much. phil http://lefttochance.com

Posted by: phil at September 07, 2005 11:43 AM (TTiLg)

13 Go lick yourself Phil

Posted by: Howie at September 07, 2005 11:45 AM (D3+20)

14 Hell, Phil, you are obviously wasting your talents here... you should go down and assist... I bet Sean Penn needs more help with his red cup brigade even as I type! You can be his second personal photographer, or even a personal blogger. How cool!

Posted by: Wine-aholic at September 07, 2005 11:54 AM (Wsn+K)

15 Thank God. I hope the reunion with his family is very very soon!

Posted by: caltechgirl at September 07, 2005 12:13 PM (PI0gZ)

16 That's wonderful

Posted by: RepJ at September 07, 2005 12:14 PM (M7kiy)

17 Rusty - I am so happy for both the family and you. Your faith and hard work were rewarded. Thank God Phill - - go to H-ll.

Posted by: Rod Stanton at September 07, 2005 12:28 PM (tplWd)

18 Phil must consider himself a leftard. What a shame. Otherwise ... wonderful news! I simply can't imagine.

Posted by: Oyster at September 07, 2005 12:37 PM (fl6E1)

19 Here you go Phil http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050907/ap_on_re_us/iraq_hostage_calif I was just telling him about what was going on," Susan Hallums told CNN. "He didn't know about New Orleans. ... He was very sorry for all the people there."

Posted by: Howie at September 07, 2005 12:59 PM (D3+20)

20 Good job Rusty. You helped in a big way.

Posted by: elliott at September 07, 2005 01:02 PM (XlQVK)

21 Well done. No doubt about it, bloggers are coming into their own as a force- and that's a good thing.

Posted by: Sigmund, Carl and Alfred at September 07, 2005 01:08 PM (dHZc2)

22 Very good news!

Posted by: Venom at September 07, 2005 01:13 PM (dbxVM)

23 "Acting on a tip from a detainee..." That's a pretty important point from CNN's website. Capturing Islamofascists can be just as useful as eliminating them.

Posted by: Venom at September 07, 2005 01:25 PM (dbxVM)

24 We had nothing to do with this. Our only role was to keep Roy's name in the news, that's all. It was our brave soldiers in Iraq, with God's help, that did all the work!

Posted by: Rusty at September 07, 2005 01:25 PM (JQjhA)

25 Thank God. Rusty-good work. Make sure the family knows how thrilled we all are.

Posted by: Jane at September 07, 2005 01:27 PM (M7kiy)

26 While you are obviously correct about our soldiers, Rusty, keeping his name in the news is so small feat given the general "screw them" climate in certain media outlets. Not bad for an outfit named after a South Park/Star Wars reference.

Posted by: Wine-aholic at September 07, 2005 01:29 PM (Wsn+K)

27 Good job and thumbs up! We are rooting for you from one of Western Canada's foremost blogsites, SmallDeadAnimals Cheers, TonyGuitar

Posted by: TonyGuitar at September 07, 2005 01:30 PM (rmMzv)

28 Tony, Wait, you mean Kate is CANADIAN??? ;-) Thanks!

Posted by: Rusty at September 07, 2005 01:34 PM (JQjhA)

29 Cool beans. Score one for the good guys.

Posted by: WunderKraut at September 07, 2005 01:39 PM (+kCPe)

30 I'm very happy for Roy Hallums and his family.

Posted by: notHowie at September 07, 2005 01:49 PM (D3+20)

31 Welcome home Roy. Thank God you were rescued. Now let's hope that Jeffrey Ake will be rescued soon. He's the only American that is most likely still alive. Matt Maupin was most likely executed in the video shown in 2004. I haven't heard anything about Dean Sadek since January. No demands were ever made.

Posted by: George at September 07, 2005 01:51 PM (hrpbg)

32 Amen George, but don't write off Dean Sadek. We hadn't heard from Roy's captors for months and months.

Posted by: Rusty at September 07, 2005 02:01 PM (JQjhA)

33 To Roy and his family, God bless you and I'm thrilled that this story had a happy ending.

Posted by: MisterPundit at September 07, 2005 02:28 PM (PNzKN)

34 Oh, happy day! I am elated but this part made me cry: "He got to say he was sorry, and I got to say I loved him. We got to say things we never thought we would be able to say." Oh, man.

Posted by: Margi at September 07, 2005 04:29 PM (nwEQH)

35 Yay! That's wonderful news!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 07, 2005 05:28 PM (QriEg)

36 Hey Phil, you know why those corpses are floating down Bourbon Street? Because the leftard mayor and governor DROPPED THE BALL! How the hell is the governance of one city the mandate of the President? It isn't. It is the mandate of the elected officials of that city, and the state in which it resides, both of which are DEMOCRATS. That moron Nagin left a whole fleet of schoolbuses and city buses sitting in a motor pool while he abandoned ship, and the people had to walk out. You liberals are so stupid there are no words in any language sufficient to describe it.

Posted by: Improbulus Maximus at September 07, 2005 11:31 PM (0yYS2)

37 I have been scouring the leftistphere for even one blog on the left that mentions this exciting and hopeful story. Not one. Sad but not unexpected. A rescued captive is one that they can't use as a shill for their contention that everyone that dies in Iraq dies needlessly.

Posted by: SoCalPundit at September 08, 2005 12:37 AM (rMZKl)

38 IM Dean did. But he's not yer ordinary left nutcase. More like in the vein of what a Democrat used/is supposed to be.

Posted by: Howie at September 08, 2005 01:45 PM (D3+20)

39 Thanks God, that's a wonderful news

Posted by: chirurgia estetica at September 09, 2005 04:52 AM (Jnwjh)

40 Hey Rusty, Isn't the news so great?? I'm certainly glad I contacted you way back when no one was saying anything about this. Roy is a good friend and I hope and pray he fully recovers from this ordeal very soon. Thanks again for what you did. Butch

Posted by: Butch Conner at September 09, 2005 08:34 AM (kIola)

41 Thank God.

Posted by: Mark at September 09, 2005 11:41 AM (Vg0tt)

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