Seven Chinese men kidnapped by gunmen in Iraq have been released.

　　The Chinese Foreign Ministry said yesterday the seven were in good spirits and some wanted to forge ahead with plans to open a construction business in Iraq despite their ordeal.

　　The men were captured on Sunday in the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, after entering Iraq from Jordan.

　　They were released early yesterday to an Iraqi religious group, the Foreign Ministry said. They were then passed on to Chinese diplomats.

　　The men went to Iraq on their own to start a construction materials business - a venture some of them were still determined to pursue, the official Xinhua news agency said.

　　After their release, the men were staying with the Chinese owner of a Baghdad restaurant.

　　Two of the men were injured in a car accident before their capture on Sunday and needed medical care, Xinhua said. It didn't give any details of the injuries and said the others were in good condition.

　　The men ran off the road as they tried to bypass Fallujah, the scene of fighting between US forces and Iraqi insurgents, Xinhua said, citing one of the men, Xue Yougui, 29.

　　The Chinese might have been victims of mistaken identity by captors who thought they were Japanese or South Koreans, a Shanghai newspaper quoted a Chinese diplomat as saying.

　　Both Japan and South Korea have soldiers in Iraq as part of the US-led military force. China has no troops there and opposed the US-led war that ousted Saddam Hussein.

　　"There is a very big chance this was the result of a misunderstanding," diplomat Jiang Xu was quoted as saying.

　　Jiang said none of the seven spoke English or Arabic, so they couldn't explain their nationalities.

　　The gunmen turned over the hostages to the Association of Islamic Clerics following its appeal for the release of civilian hostages, a spokesman for the group said.

　　Some of the hostages said they were treated kindly and provided with food and medical aid by their captors.

　　The seven men came from China's southeastern coastal province of Fujian, which has a centuries-long history of people going abroad to work.

　　(The Associated Press)