ISLAMABAD, Nov 15: Eight Western aid workers held for three months by the Taliban for preaching Christianity were celebrating their freedom here on Thursday amidst confusion over the circumstances behind their release.

The Pentagon said anti-Taliban fighters broke the two Americans, two Australians and four Germans out of a prison south of Kabul and US military helicopters flew them to Islamabad.

They were flown on Thursday morning to the Chaklala air base near Islamabad, where they were met by diplomats from their respective embassies.

But the Washington Post said the eight were handed over by the Taliban to an unidentified non-governmental group.

Two senior US defence department officials told the daily that the aid workers had been turned over peacefully by the Taliban to the NGO.

The paper, however, mentions a statement by Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi’s son on Wednesday at the country’s embassy in Vienna, saying he was confident the aid workers would be released soon.

Seif el-Islam Qadhafi said the group he heads, the Gadhafi Foundation for Charitable Organizations, had been in touch with the Taliban for two months in a bid to obtain the release of the aid workers.

The Washington Post said it was unclear whether Qadhafi’s group had anything to do with the release.

The aid workers — two Americans, two Australians and four Germans — were working for the German-based group Shelter Now when they were arrested in early August together with 16 Afghan colleagues.

The basic charges were of preaching Christianity and trying to convert Afghan Muslims to an “abolished religion”.

If convicted, they could have faced the death sentence.

The trial of the aid workers, however, had been interrupted after the airstrikes in Afghanistan began on Oct 7.

Foreign diplomats in Islamabad said the aid workers had been moved from their place of detention in Kabul before the Taliban abandoned the city on Tuesday.

Initial reports suggested they had been taken to Kandahar.

US President George W. Bush, Australian and German officials and relatives welcomed the end of their captivity, which began on Aug 3 when they were arrested.

The 16 Afghan employees of Shelter Now were also safe after breaking out of Pol-i-Charkhi prison in central Kabul, one of them said.

Mohammad Nazir, 42, said in Kabul that he and his 15 colleagues broke out of the jail late on Monday as the Taliban left the capital.

They spent the night sleeping in the desert or in mosques before being reunited with their families the next day, he said.

Nazir said no-one in Shelter Now, where he worked as a gardener, had been trying to spread Christianity and rejected Taliban charges that he had changed his faith.

“This was a black spot on the white name of our family when they said that I had been converted to Christianity,” he said.

President Bush, speaking to reporters at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, said US troops had carried out a “facilitated rescue.” “I am thankful they are safe, and I am pleased with the way our military has conducted its operations,” he said.

German Georg Taubmann, one of the freed aid workers, said he and his colleagues were taken to Ghazni by the Taliban as they withdrew from Kabul.

No sooner had they arrived then there was an anti-Taliban uprising in Ghazni by local Mujahideen commanders who stormed the prison, he said.

“They broke into the prison and just opened the doors,” Taubmann told reporters here. “We were actually afraid that the Taliban were coming and taking us to Kandahar. We were really scared.”

Taubmann said he and his fellow aid workers had been given a rousing reception by the people of Ghazni.

“We got out of the prison and into the city and people came out of their houses and they were hugging us all and clapping,” he said.

“They didn’t know there were foreigners in the prison. It was like a big celebration. I think it was one of the biggest days in my life.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) helped facilitate their flight to freedom.

“We received a call from the local military commander in Ghazni informing us that he had rescued the aid workers and asking us if we could provide some assistance in terms of arranging transportation or contact with their governments,” said ICRC spokesman Bernard Barrett.

“Our role from then on was to facilitate communications between the respective embassies in Islamabad and the people in Ghazni,” he told CNN.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he was “delighted” and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer welcomed the end of the ordeal.

The group also included Germans Margrit Stebnar, Kati Jelinek and Silke Duerrkopf and Australians Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas.

Australian officials said the two Australians were resting in the embassy compound here after talking by phone with their families in Australia.

Diana Thomas’s brother, Joseph Thomas, said he believed God had interceded on behalf of his sister. “Do you want the honest truth? I believe that God does answer prayer, that’s the reason why I reckon they’ve been released,” he said.—AFP