January 09, 2006

American Reporter Jill Carroll Held Hostage by al Qaeda in Iraq

UPDATE Jan 17th: Jill Carroll hostage video emerges. For more background on Jill Carroll visit the Jill Carroll archives.

As posted on The Jawa Report on January 7th, an American reporter named Jill Carroll has been kidnapped by Abu Musab al Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq. The Jawa Report was the first American media to report the hostage's name. Today, the Christian Science Monitor confirmed that Jill Carroll had been kidnapped.

After Tim's first post on Jill Carroll, we had an e-mail conversation about whether it was appropriate to name hostages before the U.S. State Department or other official sources released her name. The long standing policy of The Jawa Report has been that the more publicity given to hostages while they are still alive, the greater the chances of their survival. The U.S. State Department's policy of not-naming hostages publicly is borderline insanity and serves no rational purpose.

Let us keep Ms. Carroll in our prayers. Christian Science Monitor:

Jill Carroll, a freelance journalist currently on assignment for The Christian Science Monitor, was abducted by unknown gunmen in Baghdad Saturday morning. Her Iraqi interpreter was killed during the kidnapping.

"I saw a group of people coming as if they had come from the sky," recalled Ms. Carroll's driver, who survived the attack. "One guy attracted my attention. He jumped in front of me screaming, 'Stop! Stop! Stop!' with his left hand up and a pistol in his right hand."

One of the kidnappers pulled the driver from the car, jumped in, and drove away with several others huddled around Carroll and her interpreter, said the driver, who asked not to be identified. "They didn't give me any time to even put the car in neutral," he recounted.

The body of the interpreter, Allan Enwiyah, 32, was later found in the same neighborhood. He had been shot twice in the head, law enforcement officials said. There has been no word yet on Carroll's whereabouts.

The kidnapping occurred within 300 yards of the office of Adnan al-Dulaimi, a prominent Sunni politician, whom Carroll had been intending to interview at 10 a.m. Saturday local time, the driver said.

Mr. Dulaimi, however, turned out not to be at his office, and after 25 minutes, Carroll and her interpreter left. Their car was stopped as she drove away. "It was very obvious this was by design," said the driver. "The whole operation took no more than a quarter of a minute. It was very highly organized. It was a setup, a perfect ambush."

Attempts were being made last night to locate an American journalist who was kidnapped in Baghdad yesterday after a meeting with a senior Sunni politician. Her Iraqi translator was killed, writes Ali Rifat.

Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the kidnapping in a statement posted on the internet.