Kidnapped reporter Carroll freed in Iraq By Alastair Macdonald
7 minutes ago
Journalist Jill Carroll was freed in Iraq on Thursday, nearly three months after being kidnapped in Baghdad, her newspaper said.
Iraqi politicians and officials said the correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor was delivered some hours earlier to the office of a Sunni Arab political party in a district of the capital that is a stronghold for Sunni Arab insurgents.
She was in good health and is now in the Green Zone government and diplomatic compound, an Iraqi Interior Ministry source said. The U.S. embassy and military declined comment.
The release of the 28-year-old correspondent, whose Iraqi translator was killed during her January 7 abduction on a Baghdad street, came a week after three Christian peace activists were rescued by special forces after four months in captivity.
At that time, military officials in Baghdad said the hunt for Carroll and other foreign hostages was continuing.
An official at the Iraqi Islamic Party said the journalist was delivered to its office in Amriya district, a Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold in Baghdad.
The Islamic Party is one of the main Sunni Arab political groups in Iraq. Its leaders, in common with others, made strong appeals for Carroll's release.
Sunni Arab leaders had been embarrassed when Carroll was abducted and her interpreter killed just after leaving an appointment at another Sunni political organization.
Christian Science Monitor spokeswoman Ellen Tuttle said the release had been confirmed by Carroll's father. The first news came from the Italian news agency ANSA, for whom Carroll was also a freelance reporter.
Her interpreter, Allan Enwiyah, was killed when gunmen seized the reporter. Her driver escaped.
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After her kidnapping, Carroll appeared in three videotapes played on Arabic television. Her shadowy captors called themselves the Vengeance Brigade and demanded that all female prisoners in Iraq be released.
The U.S. military said it was holding less than a dozen women. Iraqi authorities insisted on freeing many of them after Carroll's kidnapping, but said the two events were not related.
Hopes for Carroll's release were boosted after British-led special forces stormed a house last week and freed three Christian peace activists, two Canadians and a Briton.
Although the cases appeared not to be directly linked, U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said that information gathered during the operation to free the activists could help efforts to free Carroll.
Thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped in the past three years, many for ransom. More than 200 foreigners have also been taken prisoner. Many have been freed but others have been killed by militant groups making political demands.
Two German and two Kenyan engineers are among those still held. |
