World Jul. 03, 2008 - 05:38AM JST ( 2 )

BOGOTA —

French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, three U.S. nationals and 11 other hostages were rescued from Marxist FARC rebels Wednesday, freed from years in captivity by a daring Colombian military raid.

“I want first of all to thank God and the Colombian soldiers,” Betancourt told radio Caracol just hours after she was plucked from the jungle in a military operation that ended her six-year ordeal.

Betancourt, who was captured in 2002, and the three Americans held since 2003, were rescued from their captors along with 11 Colombian soldiers in a helicopter-backed military operation, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said.

“Fifteen hostages held by the FARC have been rescued unharmed. Among the hostages was Ingrid Betancourt, three U.S. citizens and 11 members of our armed forces,” Santos told a defense ministry press conference.

World leaders were swift to welcome the news, and celebrations broke out on the streets of Colombian cities as residents hailed the jungle rescue in a country plagued for decades by kidnappings.

There had been mounting fears for Betancourt’s health following the release of a video showing her looking thin and frail, and her teenaged son Lorenzo Delloye said he was overjoyed to hear his 46-year-old mother was free.

“It is an immense joy, an indescribable joy, I still cannot believe it,” Delloye said.

American hostages Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell were also freed in the operation, some 70 kilometers from the city of San Jose del Guaviare.

Santos said the operation came after Colombian forces infiltrated the leadership of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). “We will continue working on the release of other hostages,” he added.

Betancourt, a dual national, became the international face of Colombia’s tragic hostage crisis after she was seized in February 2002 during her long-shot bid for the presidency.

Her plight gained new urgency in February when a former hostage warned that Betancourt was very sick and morally spent, prompting tearful appeals for her release from her two children and her mother.

U.S. President George W Bush congratulated Bogota on the releases telling Colombian leader Alvaro Uribe he was a “strong leader,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was “delighted” by the news.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy also thanked Uribe, who spoke with Betancourt just after her release, and called on the FARC to end their “absurd” struggle. He said Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Betancourt’s family would leave immediately for Colombia.

The Vatican hailed Betancourt’s release as “a positive sign” that pointed towards “reconciliation” for Colombia, a spokesman said.

Amnesty International called on the FARC to release its other hostages “immediately and unconditionally,” saying they should not be forgotten.

As congratulations poured in from Latin American leaders, street celebrations broke out in Bogota with thousands of cars, their horns blaring, packing onto the roads causing a huge traffic jam.

Hundreds of people flooded onto the streets brandishing the national flag and shouting “Free, free, free.”

“We are all free,” read a huge sign posted on a building in Cali, 500 kilometers southeast of Bogota, while there were similar scenes in the northwestern city of Medellin.

Betancourt was the most well-known of about 700 people believed to have been taken captive by the FARC, a four-decade-old insurgency which figures on US and European Union lists of terrorist organizations.

Hopes for her imminent release were raised and then dashed when her former campaign manager Clara Rojas was freed by the rebels in January in a deal brokered with the help of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The three U.S. civilians, employees of US defense contractor Northrop Grumman, were working in Colombia for the U.S. Defense Department and were on an anti-drug trafficking mission when their plane crashed in the jungle in the Caqueta region, a large area of coca production under rebel control.

Washington had kept a low-profile in the case, and there had been no international campaign to free the three, as France had organized for Betancourt.

Wire reports