We're grateful to be back home - aid workers

The workers had been arrested by the Taliban more than three months earlier for preaching Christianity.

‘‘The men who came and rescued us did a fabulous job - I don’t think Hollywood could have done it better,’’ said Mercer.

‘‘We knew that God was going to get us out of there somehow,’’ added Dayna Curry, 30, the other American in the group. She said US President George Bush had called them to tell them of his happiness that they were free.

Both the women appeared healthy and elated as they spoke. They said despite fear and uncertainty as bombs fell outside their prison, they were generally treated well by their Taliban captors. One jailer, Mercer said, even told them he loved them as sisters.

The eight - two Americans, two Australians and four Germans - were whisked to safety by US helicopters before dawn yesterday after Afghan fighters freed them from three months of Taliban captivity.

In the dramatic night rescue, women in the group set fire to their body-masking burqas so American special forces pilots could find them.

All eight worked with Shelter Now International, directed from Germany but based in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. They were charged with preaching Christianity, which in Taliban courts can be punishable by death.

The group included four Germans, Georg Taubmann, Margrit Stebnar, Kati Jelinek and Silke Duerrkopf and two Australians, Diana Thomas and Peter Bunch.

Retreating Taliban troops took them on Monday from Kabul toward Kandahar, where they feared they would not escape alive. Sixteen Afghan employees accused with them managed to flee in Kabul.

All eight spent a terrified night in a steel shipping container in Ghazni, 50 miles south of Kabul. In the morning, they were put into a squalid jail, the worst of five prisons during their captivity.

Hours later, the jail door burst open, and the aid workers were frightened when bearded soldiers rushed toward them.

But the men were anti-Taliban insurgents, astonished to happen upon foreigners. One of them, taking in the situation, shouted: ‘‘Freedom.’’

The landing site from which they were picked up was illuminated only by feeble lamps, which the helicopter pilots could not see in the dark, the workers said. They started a fire, fueled by the six women’s burqas.

The two American women were arrested first on August 3, accused of visiting Afghan homes to distribute Christian literature and show CD-Roms on the life of Jesus.

Two days later, police raided the Shelter Now International offices and, after seizing what they said was Christian propaganda, arrested the other six.

Bush hailed the dramatic happy ending.

‘‘I’m thankful they’re safe, and I’m pleased with our military for conducting this operation,’’ he said at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Bush had spurned several attempts by the Taliban to bargain for the release of the aid workers.

The Taliban had agreed to turn over the eight through the Red Cross, two senior administration officials said. But before the exchange could be accomplished, the anti-Taliban northern alliance overran Ghazni.

Bush said the Red Cross and other ‘‘people on the ground’’ and ‘‘facilitated’’ US troops’ ability to rescue the group.

He said he had been worried that the Taliban might put the aid workers in a house which could be bombed accidentally. The US military was working on plans for a secret rescue, he said, but did not elaborate.

Despite the dramatic release, Bush added, the US military mission remained to topple the Taliban - already run out of the north by rebels - and to root out Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.

Curry said freedom felt like ‘‘a dream come true.’’

‘‘It was an incredible moment to see my mom standing there, and to be able to go and hug her’’ she said.

Mercer said she prayed the American campaign against the Taliban and bin Laden would succeed.

‘‘I hope now that we’re free that we’ll be able to see another nation be free, and that another day will come for Afghanistan,’’ she said.