Iraq ? Iraqi troops freed a kidnapped British journalist for CBS News on Monday after finding him hooded and bound in a house during a raid in a Shiite militia stronghold in Basra.

Richard Butler’s rescue after two months in captivity was a welcome success story for the Iraqi military, which has been strongly criticized for its effort to impose order on Iraq’s second-largest city, an oil hub 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.

It came on a day in which nearly 40 people were killed or found dead nationwide – half of them in bombings near or in the northwestern city of Mosul.

Roadside bombings killed two U.S. soldiers, one in Baghdad and the other in the northern Salahuddin province, the military said. At least 4,034 members of the American military have died since the war started in March 2003.

Butler, 47, was thin but in good condition and laughing as he was shown on Iraqi state television hugging well-wishers and greeting beaming Iraqi officials.