The women were kidnapped on Saturday when their car broke down on a road linking the Iraqi capital Baghdad to Erbil.

Two Philippine women abducted by unidentified gunmen in Iraq have been freed, the Diyala province police chief said on Sunday.

The women were travelling with three other nationals of the Philippines on Saturday when their car broke down on a road linking Baghdad to Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region.

The two women got out of their car after it broke down. They were then kidnapped by unknown men who drove by in a yellow car, a military source said.

The identities, affiliation, and motivation of the kidnappers was not yet clear, the sources said on Saturday.

Security sources told Al Jazeera on Saturday that the driver of the car, an Iraqi national, was detained and placed under investigation after he filed a report at a police station in Diyala province.

There has been an increase in attacks and kidnappings by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group over the past few weeks near the area where the women were taken.

At least eight members of the security forces were kidnapped and later killed by fighters on the same highway last month.