SilentBtViolent
Rape Ape
Carroll freed after three months
BAGHDAD: US journalist Jill Carroll was freed by her kidnappers yesterday almost three months after being seized at gunpoint from a Baghdad street, as a wave of killings and abductions of Iraqis swept across the country.
"I am happy to be free. I just want to be with my family quickly," a composed Carroll, wearing a headscarf, told Baghdad Television, run by the Iraqi Islamic Party at whose office she was dropped off by her captors around midday.
Carroll said that during her entire captivity the only space in which she was allowed to move was "between my room and the bathroom." "I was allowed to read a newspaper only once and watch the television once just to make me aware of what was happening outside," she said.
Iraqi Islamic Party chief Tariq Al Hashimi told Carroll during the interview "do not forget the Iraqi people." "What the Iraqi Islamic Party is giving you today is the teaching of Islam," Hashimi said and handed Carroll a Quran, Islam's holy book.
The journalist, who was freelancing mainly for the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor, was seized on January 7 by men who shot dead her interpreter.
Carroll praised Iraq's insurgents and predicted their victory in an interview conducted by her captors before they released her, according to a video posted on the Internet.
The footage, which could not be independently verified, appeared to have been filmed shortly before the freelance journalist was released.
"Did you think the American army or the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) would save you at any time," a muffled male voice asked Carroll in accented English.
"Sometimes I thought maybe that they might come, they might find me, they might find a way to know where I am and come to get me," she answered, dressed in the same baggy dress and headscarf she appeared in after her release.
"Why did not they save you," asked the man.
"I think the mujahedeen are very smart and even with all the technology and all the people that the American army has here, they are still better at knowing how to live and work here, more clever," she said.
"Does this mean something to you," asked the man.
"It makes very clear that the mujahedeen are the ones that will win in the end," said Carroll.
At the end of the 8.5-minute tape, the same man read out a statement in Arabic.
"The mujahedeen in the land of the two rivers announce the liberation of the journalist Jill Carroll... after the US forces and the CIA failed to find her making their ineptitude obvious to the whole world," he said.
"We liberate this journalist today after the American government met some of our demands by releasing some of our women prisoners."
US President George W Bush expressed his pleasure over her release. "I'm really grateful she was released and thank those who worked hard for her release, and we're glad she's alive," Bush told reporters in Cancun, Mexico, where he was attending summit with the presidents of Mexico and Canada.
Carroll's relieved family asked for time and privacy to help her recover from her ordeal.
US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters that "no US person had made arrangement with kidnappers" for her release. "By US person I mean members of the US mission here."
Carroll's captors, a previously unknown group calling itself the Brigades of Vengeance, had set numerous deadlines threatening to kill her if US-led forces failed to release all female detainees in Iraq. Iraqis welcomed the release of Carroll but criticised their leaders for paying too much attention to a foreign hostage while ignoring their own daily suffering.
Youssef Zaya said journalists such as Carroll should never be kidnapped because they inform the world of Iraq's tragedies.
Meanwhile, German authorities have arrested a man who is accused of trying to extort $2 million from the Christian Science Monitor by promising to win the release of American reporter Jill Carroll, who was freed from captivity in Baghdad.
---------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2006, Gulf Daily News
BAGHDAD: US journalist Jill Carroll was freed by her kidnappers yesterday almost three months after being seized at gunpoint from a Baghdad street, as a wave of killings and abductions of Iraqis swept across the country.
"I am happy to be free. I just want to be with my family quickly," a composed Carroll, wearing a headscarf, told Baghdad Television, run by the Iraqi Islamic Party at whose office she was dropped off by her captors around midday.
Carroll said that during her entire captivity the only space in which she was allowed to move was "between my room and the bathroom." "I was allowed to read a newspaper only once and watch the television once just to make me aware of what was happening outside," she said.
Iraqi Islamic Party chief Tariq Al Hashimi told Carroll during the interview "do not forget the Iraqi people." "What the Iraqi Islamic Party is giving you today is the teaching of Islam," Hashimi said and handed Carroll a Quran, Islam's holy book.
The journalist, who was freelancing mainly for the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor, was seized on January 7 by men who shot dead her interpreter.
Carroll praised Iraq's insurgents and predicted their victory in an interview conducted by her captors before they released her, according to a video posted on the Internet.
The footage, which could not be independently verified, appeared to have been filmed shortly before the freelance journalist was released.
"Did you think the American army or the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) would save you at any time," a muffled male voice asked Carroll in accented English.
"Sometimes I thought maybe that they might come, they might find me, they might find a way to know where I am and come to get me," she answered, dressed in the same baggy dress and headscarf she appeared in after her release.
"Why did not they save you," asked the man.
"I think the mujahedeen are very smart and even with all the technology and all the people that the American army has here, they are still better at knowing how to live and work here, more clever," she said.
"Does this mean something to you," asked the man.
"It makes very clear that the mujahedeen are the ones that will win in the end," said Carroll.
At the end of the 8.5-minute tape, the same man read out a statement in Arabic.
"The mujahedeen in the land of the two rivers announce the liberation of the journalist Jill Carroll... after the US forces and the CIA failed to find her making their ineptitude obvious to the whole world," he said.
"We liberate this journalist today after the American government met some of our demands by releasing some of our women prisoners."
US President George W Bush expressed his pleasure over her release. "I'm really grateful she was released and thank those who worked hard for her release, and we're glad she's alive," Bush told reporters in Cancun, Mexico, where he was attending summit with the presidents of Mexico and Canada.
Carroll's relieved family asked for time and privacy to help her recover from her ordeal.
US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters that "no US person had made arrangement with kidnappers" for her release. "By US person I mean members of the US mission here."
Carroll's captors, a previously unknown group calling itself the Brigades of Vengeance, had set numerous deadlines threatening to kill her if US-led forces failed to release all female detainees in Iraq. Iraqis welcomed the release of Carroll but criticised their leaders for paying too much attention to a foreign hostage while ignoring their own daily suffering.
Youssef Zaya said journalists such as Carroll should never be kidnapped because they inform the world of Iraq's tragedies.
Meanwhile, German authorities have arrested a man who is accused of trying to extort $2 million from the Christian Science Monitor by promising to win the release of American reporter Jill Carroll, who was freed from captivity in Baghdad.
---------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2006, Gulf Daily News
