Jill Carroll
Jill Carroll (born October 6, 1977) is an American former journalist who worked for news organizations such as The Wall Street Journal, and the Christian Science Monitor.
She participated in a fellowship at Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy and returned to work for the Monitor.
[1] On January 7, 2006, Carroll, along with an interpreter and driver, traveled to the Al-Adel neighborhood of Baghdad to interview Adnan al-Dulaimi, a Sunni politician and leader of the Iraqi People's Conference.
The driver, Adnan Abbas, managed to escape, but Carroll was kidnapped and her interpreter, Alan Enwiyah, 32, was shot dead and his body abandoned nearby by the kidnappers during the abduction.
Carroll's driver, quoted in a story posted on the Monitor's website, said gunmen jumped in front of the car, pulled him from it, and drove off with their two captives all within 15 seconds.
"We are urgently seeking information about Ms. Carroll and are pursuing every avenue to secure her release," Monitor editor Richard Bergenheim said in January.
"I, her father and her sister are appealing directly to her captors to release this young woman who has worked so hard to show the sufferings of Iraqis to the world," Mary Beth Carroll told CNN's American Morning on January 19, 2006.
In efforts to locate and rescue Carroll, U.S. forces initially raided a mosque in the west of the capital after a tip that "activities related to the kidnapping were being carried out inside," triggering angry protests from Sunni Muslim citizens.
I call upon the kidnappers to immediately release this reporter who came here to cover Iraq's news and defending our rights.The Monitor requested that a media blackout regarding the kidnapping take place.
[9] On January 17, 2006, Qatar-based news network Al-Jazeera aired a silent 20-second video-tape that showed Carroll, and indicated that in an accompanying message, an as-yet unidentified group was giving the United States 72 hours to release all female prisoners in Iraq.
[citation needed] On January 30, 2006, a second video appeared on Al Jazeera showing Carroll wearing a headscarf and crying.
Although the initial airing of the video did not include audio, Carroll is said to repeat earlier pleas to release all female hostages under American custody.
After the deadline passed, Iraqi Interior Minister Baqir Jabr al-Zubeidi believed Carroll to still be alive, according to ABC News.
"[16] According to The Guardian, Carroll's "employers at the Christian Science Monitor recognised instantly the inherently political character of terrorism and swiftly mobilized enough support in the Islamic world to get her through the first 'deadline'", and this was one of the main reasons she survived.
[citation needed] On February 27, 2006, 25 organizations belonging to the International Freedom of Expression Exchange called for Carroll's immediate release.
In it, Carroll told her father she felt compelled to make statements strongly critical of President Bush and his policy in Iraq.
In fact, Carroll did what many hostage experts and past captives would have urged her to do: Give the men who held the power of life and death over her what they wanted.
"You'll pretty much say anything to stay alive because you expect people will understand these aren't your words," says Micah Garen, a journalist and author who was held captive by a Shiite militia in southern Iraq for 10 days in August 2004.
[27] In 2006, Carroll participated in a fellowship at Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, where she researched the decline of foreign news bureaus in the wake of changes in the newspaper industry.
