IRAQ: The Irish journalist Rory Carroll had not even left Baghdad yesterday when questions were raised about the deal that freed him on Thursday night.
Nothing comes for nothing in the Middle East, and it would be very surprising if there was not at least a give-and-take understanding leading to his release.
Carroll himself gave the strongest clue when he told the Guardian on Thursday: "At one point I was told I would be used as a bargaining chip in exchange for Sadr people taken in Basra."
It is still not clear whether Carroll was taken hostage by free-lance kidnappers in the Shia slum of Sadr City, who subsequently ceded to the authority of Sheikh Moqtada al-Sadr, or whether he was targeted by members of Sadr's movement from the outset.
British forces clashed with Sadr's "Mehdi Army" militia in Basra last month, after two British agents in Arab clothing were arrested by Iraqi police and turned over to the militia.
A spokesman for the British military in Iraq yesterday confirmed that six of the 14 men from Sadr's militia who were detained by the British have been released.
Two were let go soon after last month's clashes, he said, and four "subsequently".
The spokesman would not say whether the four were released since Carroll was kidnapped on Wednesday. He would not be drawn on whether their liberation was connected with Carroll's release after 36 hours of captivity, beyond describing the suggestion as "improbable".
British forces review the status of their prisoners every 48 hours, and it is not inconceivable that a commitment was made to look favourably upon the status of the remaining Sadr prisoners.
Moqtada Sadr is the only prominent Shia Muslim leader to have established ties with the Sunni Muslim opposition to the occupation of Iraq.
His nationalist, anti-American and anti-British rhetoric enjoys support among the poorer Shia, who distrust the highly educated Shia exiles who returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
In 2004, the US said it would capture Sadr "dead or alive". But Washington quietly abandoned all pursuit of Sadr after intense fighting between the Mehdi Army and US forces in Najaf.
Britain has adopted a much less confrontational approach to Sadr and his militia. US forces have several times freed western hostages by storming the places where they were held. However, intervention by force obviously endangers the captive.
The role played by Ahmad Chalabi, the deputy prime minister in the Jaafari government, is also intriguing.
Iraqi security forces handed Carroll over to Mr Chalabi on Thursday night. A long-time agent for the CIA and Pentagon, Mr Chalabi fell out of favour with Washington after the invasion of Iraq for providing false information about weapons of mass destruction. US officials then accused him of spying for Iran.
Mr Chalabi, a secular Shia, resurrected himself politically by making an alliance with the anti-American Sheikh Moqtada.
By acting as an intermediary in Carroll's kidnapping, Mr Chalabi may have sought to re-establish his own importance as an interlocutor for the US and Britain.