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Aid workers' joy after narrow escape

Freed German aid worker Georg Taubmann speaks with reporters outside the German Embassy in Islamabad.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Eight Western aid workers, locked in Afghan prisons and fearing for their lives, were freed by anti-Taliban fighters and spirited to safety aboard U.S. helicopters Thursday.

The aid workers -- four Germans, two Americans and two Australians -- were all safely at their respective embassies and were said to be in good health.

Alistair Adam, an Australian Embassy official, said the workers -- held for more than three months after being detained by the Taliban on charges of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity -- were tired and wanted to wash.

"They're very elated to be free at last. They seem perfectly fine to me. They're rational, and they've coped very well with this situation."

Almost taken to Kandahar

The German workers were laughing and smiling as they stepped from cars outside the German Embassy in Islamabad.

Their relief was evident as Georg Taubmann, head of the aid group in Afghanistan, told reporters how the Taliban had taken the eight with them on the retreat from Kabul.

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The Taliban "wanted to take us to Kandahar, and we knew if you end up in Kandahar you would not survive there," Taubmann said, speaking through an interpreter.

He said they had stopped Tuesday and their captors "put us all in a steel container. It was terribly cold and they wanted to lock the container and leave us there (until) morning, and we had no blankets..."

The next morning, he said, the detainees were taken to a jail in Ghazni, "which was a terrible place. It was the worst place. We have been in five prisons."

Taubmann said the eight were freed from the prison by anti-Taliban forces. "The Massood people came, and others from the alliance, and broke into the prison and just opened the doors ... We were really scared, and then the alliance people came in ... and we were free and we got out of prison and we walked through the city and the people came out of their houses and hugged us and greeted us, and they were all clapping ...

"I think this was one of the biggest days of my life," Taubmann said.

'Taliban command breakdown'

Observers have acknowledged the aid workers were lucky to have been left in Kabul by the retreating Taliban, given the potential value of western hostages to their captors.

CNN's Tom Mintier, reporting from Islamabad, said the apparent oversight on the part of the Taliban reflected a possible breakdown in the chain of command between the Taliban leaders and their local commanders.

Some of the freed workers are transported in this van to their embassies in Islamabad.

Bernard Barrett, a spokesman for the International Red Cross in Islamabad, said a local military commander in Ghazni, about 90 miles southwest of Kabul, contacted Red Cross officials in Afghanistan on Tuesday to discuss the detainees.

"(He) told them that he had rescued the eight SNI (Shelter Now International) people and asked for help to arrange for their transportation," Barrett said, explaining that the IRC facilitated communications between the governments of the detainees and the local military commander. SNI is a German relief agency that provided food and homes to the poor of Afghanistan.

'We're amazed how it worked'

The detainees were Australians Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas, Americans Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, and the Germans -- Taubmann, Katrin Jelinek, Margrit Stebner and Silke Durrkopf. The American and Australian workers appeared healthy as they were driven to their embassies.

There has been no word on the fate of 16 Afghan Muslims who worked for the aid agency and were arrested at the same time as the Westerners.

The aid workers were taken out of Afghanistan around 4:40 p.m. ET (2:40 a.m. Thursday in Afghanistan) by three U.S. Special Operations helicopters.

"It was dramatic up to the last minute," Taubmann said. "We had almost given up that the Americans would find us. But then they did... We're amazed how it worked out so well."