CrossCourt~Rally
Mar 30th, 2006, 11:15 AM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Kidnapped U.S. reporter Jill Carroll has been released after nearly three months in captivity, Iraq police and the leader of the Islamic Party said Thursday. She was reported in good condition.
Carroll, a freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped on Jan. 7, in Baghdad's western Adil neighborhood while going to interview Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi. Her translator was killed in the attack about 300 yards from al-Dulaimi's office.
"She was released this morning, she's talked to her father and she's fine," said David Cook, Washington bureau chief of The Christian Science Monitor.
Police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said was handed over to the Iraqi Islamic Party office in Amiriya, western Baghdad, by an unknown group. She was later turned over to the Americans and was believed to be in the heavily fortified Green Zone, he said.
Her captors, calling themselves the Revenge Brigades, had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq by Feb. 26 and said Carroll would be killed if that didn't happen. The date came and went with no word about her welfare.
The United States Embassy in Baghdad said it could not confirm Carroll's release.
On Feb. 28, Iraq's Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Carroll was being held by the Islamic Army in Iraq, the insurgent group that freed two French journalists in 2004 after four months in captivity.
Jabr said then that he believed the 28-year-old was still alive, although the deadline set by her captors for the U.S. to meet their demands had expired.
She was last seen in a videotape broadcast Feb. 9 by the private Kuwaiti television station Al-Rai. Her twin sister Katie issued a plea for her release on Al-Arabiya television late Wednesday night.
Carroll went to the Middle East in 2002 after being laid off from a newspaper job. She had long dreamed of covering a war.
In American Journal Review last year, Carroll wrote that she moved to Jordan in late 2002, six months before the war started, "to learn as much about the region as possible before the fighting began."
"There was bound to be plenty of parachute journalism once the war started, and I didn't want to be a part of that," she wrote.
Carroll has had work from Iraq published in the Monitor, AJR, U.S. News & World Report, an Italian news wire and other publications. She has been interviewed often on National Public Radio.
On Wednesday, Carroll's sister said her sister is a "wonderful person" who is an "innocent woman." Katie Carroll read a statement on the Al-Arabiya network, noting that there had been no word from her sister's captors in Iraq in almost two months.
"I've been living a nightmare, worrying if she is hurt or
Carroll, a freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped on Jan. 7, in Baghdad's western Adil neighborhood while going to interview Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi. Her translator was killed in the attack about 300 yards from al-Dulaimi's office.
"She was released this morning, she's talked to her father and she's fine," said David Cook, Washington bureau chief of The Christian Science Monitor.
Police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said was handed over to the Iraqi Islamic Party office in Amiriya, western Baghdad, by an unknown group. She was later turned over to the Americans and was believed to be in the heavily fortified Green Zone, he said.
Her captors, calling themselves the Revenge Brigades, had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq by Feb. 26 and said Carroll would be killed if that didn't happen. The date came and went with no word about her welfare.
The United States Embassy in Baghdad said it could not confirm Carroll's release.
On Feb. 28, Iraq's Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Carroll was being held by the Islamic Army in Iraq, the insurgent group that freed two French journalists in 2004 after four months in captivity.
Jabr said then that he believed the 28-year-old was still alive, although the deadline set by her captors for the U.S. to meet their demands had expired.
She was last seen in a videotape broadcast Feb. 9 by the private Kuwaiti television station Al-Rai. Her twin sister Katie issued a plea for her release on Al-Arabiya television late Wednesday night.
Carroll went to the Middle East in 2002 after being laid off from a newspaper job. She had long dreamed of covering a war.
In American Journal Review last year, Carroll wrote that she moved to Jordan in late 2002, six months before the war started, "to learn as much about the region as possible before the fighting began."
"There was bound to be plenty of parachute journalism once the war started, and I didn't want to be a part of that," she wrote.
Carroll has had work from Iraq published in the Monitor, AJR, U.S. News & World Report, an Italian news wire and other publications. She has been interviewed often on National Public Radio.
On Wednesday, Carroll's sister said her sister is a "wonderful person" who is an "innocent woman." Katie Carroll read a statement on the Al-Arabiya network, noting that there had been no word from her sister's captors in Iraq in almost two months.
"I've been living a nightmare, worrying if she is hurt or