Three Americans held in Iraq for nearly one month were en route to Germany after having been released with just the "bumps and bruises you'd expect," a U.S. military official told NBC News on Tuesday.
The State Department said the Iraqi government was responsible for securing the release of the trio, who were reported missing on Jan. 16.
A senior Iraqi security official told NBC News on condition of anonymity that the Iraqi intelligence service had "liberated" the Americans.
Iraqi authorities had said the three were kidnapped from a "suspicious apartment" in the mixed Shia-Sunni neighborhood of Dora, The Associated Press reported.
They were being taken to the U.S. facility in Landstuhl.