Deadline passes with no word on US reporter (AP) Updated: 2006-01-21 14:12
US negotiators were working around the clock to secure the release
of the American journalist Jill Carroll as a deadline set by militants
threatening to kill her passed Friday with no word on her fate.
The Grand Mufti of
the Mosque of Paris Jelloul Bouzidi speaks to the media during a press
conference organized by Paris-based media watchdog Reporters without
Borders in Paris, Friday, Jan. 20, 2006. Organizers and participants
called for the release of US journalist Jill Carroll, a 28-year-old
freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor who was kidnapped on
Jan. 7 in Baghdad.[AP] | Muslims from Baghdad to
Paris urged the militants to free the 28-year-old woman and end Iraq's wave of
kidnappings. More than 240 foreigners have been taken captive and at least 39
killed since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Carroll was seized in a rough Baghdad neighborhood on Jan. 7 by gunmen who
killed her translator. The Sunni Arab politician she had gone to interview urged
her release and demanded that US forces stop detaining Iraqi women.
"This act has hurt me and makes me sad because the journalist was trying to
meet me when she was kidnapped," Adnan al-Dulaimi said Friday. "I call upon the
kidnappers to immediately release this reporter who came here to cover Iraq's
news and defend our rights."
A videotape sent by Carroll's kidnappers, a group calling itself "The Revenge
Brigade," was aired Tuesday by the Arab TV station Al-Jazeera, which said her
captors threatened to kill her unless US forces freed all Iraqi women in
military custody within 72 hours.
No hour was specified, and there was no indication if any prisoners had been
released. But the US military confirmed Friday that it has nine Iraqi women in
its detention facilities on suspicion of terror-related activities.
"We don't comment on whether Iraqi female or male detainees are in the
process of being released," US military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said.
"Of course we understand the cultural sensitivities in detaining females and pay
particular attention to assessing their files."
Iraq's deputy justice minister, Busho Ibrahim Ali, visited the women Friday
and said six of them — three from Baghdad, and one each from Mosul, Kirkuk and
Tal Afar — would be freed next week.
"There's no link between the government's request for their release and the
kidnapped American journalist," said Ali, who saw the detainees at a US facility
near Baghdad International Airport.
"But I hope that their release will lead to her (Carroll's) release."
Carroll grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., and graduated from the University of
Massachusetts. She worked as a reporting assistant for The Wall Street Journal
before moving to Jordan and launching her freelance career in 2002, learning
Arabic along the way. Most recently, she was working for The Christian Science
Monitor.
A US official said little has been heard from the kidnappers since two
roughly 20-second portions of the videotape were aired Tuesday and Thursday.
They showed Carroll sitting in a house, surrounded by three armed, masked men.
A Baghdad-based team of US hostage situation specialists, including FBI
agents, diplomats and military personnel, has been following multiple leads in
the hunt for Carroll, a US Embassy official said. They were meeting with
prominent Iraqis, particularly Sunni Arab politicians who may know the
kidnappers, the official said.
But the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the case, said he was unaware of any contacts between the
high-level hostage release team and Carroll's kidnappers.
Iraqi kidnappers have often given deadlines or ultimatums only to ignore them
and keep holding captives. Kidnappers of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena,
seized in Baghdad in February 2005, initially gave Italy 72 hours to withdraw
its troops from Iraq. The Italians did not comply, but Sgrena was released a
month later.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, more Iraqis have been abducted either by
insurgents or gangs seeking ransoms.
According to figures compiled by the Washington-based Brookings Institution,
there was an average of two kidnappings a day of Iraqis in Baghdad in January
2004 and 10 a day in December of that year. Last month, the think tank said
kidnappings of Iraqis averaged 30 a day nationwide.
In a statement aired Friday by two major Arab television stations, Carroll's
father, Jim, described his daughter as "an innocent woman" and told the captors
that sparing her life would "serve your cause more than her death."
French Muslim leaders and former hostages gathered in the Grand Mosque of
Paris Friday to appeal for Carroll's release and urge the US government to
negotiate with her kidnappers.
"It is deeply revolting that an innocent life is threatened," said Dalil
Boubakeur, head of the Grand Mosque of Paris and president of the French Council
of the Muslim Faith.
A delegation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations flew to Jordan
and planned to come to Baghdad to try to secure Carroll's release.
A spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars, an Iraqi Sunni clerical
group that has contacts with some insurgent groups, said it could do little
because it did not know who was holding the reporter.
Foreign diplomats have often sought help from the association in previous
abductions, although it has never advocated kidnappings nor acknowledged playing
any role in securing releases.
"We plead with the kidnappers of the American female journalist and all
kidnappers to release any hostages they are holding who are not part of the
occupation," Sheik Mahmoud Al-Sumaidy said after a sermon at the Sunni Um
al-Quraa mosque in Baghdad.
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