Journalists in gaza angry over sensless kidnapping

[ManchesterFolk]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Palestinian journalists on Saturday protested the kidnapping of a Fox News correspondent and cameraman, as concern about the men's safety grew.

ADVERTISEMENT

Cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, of New Zealand, and American correspondent Steve Centanni, 60, were taken Monday from their TV van near the Palestinian security services headquarters in Gaza City.

About 30 members of the Palestinian Journalists' Union gathered outside the parliamentary building in Gaza, holding up signs demanding the men be freed. Other signs called for security in Gaza, where armed men wander the streets freely.

Jennifer Griffen, chief Fox News correspondent for the Middle East, called the kidnapping a "test for the Palestinian people."

"We don't care who kidnapped them, we want them returned unharmed. This is a very serious case for the Palestinians, for the Palestinian Authority," Griffen said.

More than two dozen foreigners have been abducted by Palestinian militants, usually in an attempt to settle personal scores, but almost all have been released within hours.

Security officials said they were concerned for the Fox journalists because no other foreigners have been held this long and all major militant groups in Gaza have denied involvement.

Khaled Batch, a leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group, said kidnapping members of the media "silenced the voice of freedom and justice."

"We ... have experienced oppression and denial. We don't want to practice this pain and suffering on others, on other wives and people," Batch said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060819/...za_journalists

[Keltoi]

I was wondering if any further info was out about this kidnapping. FOX news hasn't covered it all that much, probably because they don't want to be part of the story. From the sound of things it was probably a group of criminals who have kidnapped people before to get a ransom. I doubt Hamas would pull something like this now.

[therebbe]

I have not even heard of this. Pretty interesting.

[ManchesterFolk]

I have not even heard of this. Pretty interesting.

It is interesting. because they dont liek someones views they just kidnap them... Let me ask you? Did there journalists deserve to get kidnaped? of course not! It was senseless and the people responsible should get full punishment.

Hey there! Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.

When you create an account, you can participate in the discussions and share your thoughts. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and make new friends.
Sign Up

[Keltoi]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A previously unheard of Palestinian group, the Holy Jihad Brigades, claimed responsibility Wednesday for kidnapping a FOX News cameraman and correspondent, Al-Jazeera reported.

The Palestinian news agency Ramattan said the group set a 72-hour deadline to swap them for Palestinian prisoners.

American correspondent Steve Centanni, 60, and cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, of New Zealand were kidnapped Aug. 14 from their TV van near the Palestinian security services headquarters in Gaza City.

Although Palestinian militant groups have often seized foreigners, including members of the media, this is the longest any have been held.
Associated Press

A deadline for a release of Muslims prisoners? Either they are extremely stupid or they just want an excuse to kill.

[KAding]

As usual these extremists are playing in the hand of its enemies. The only reason why The Israeli-Pal conflict is in the news so often is because the area is swamped with journalists. If these journalists start avoiding going to the Pal terroritories there will be less reporting and that means less of an outcry whenever Israel does something.

[Woodrow]

It is interesting. because they dont liek someones views they just kidnap them... Let me ask you? Did there journalists deserve to get kidnaped? of course not! It was senseless and the people responsible should get full punishment.

I think the interesting thing is that there have been no demands from anyone holding them hostage, if that is the case. I would suspect this is purely a criminal act with no political or military objective.

It may come as a surprise, but criminals do exist every where and this seems to be a criminal act.

[Keltoi]

I think the interesting thing is that there have been no demands from anyone holding them hostage, if that is the case. I would suspect this is purely a criminal act with no political or military objective.

It may come as a surprise, but criminals do exist every where and this seems to be a criminal act.

Actually Woodrow, if you look at my post above, the kidnappers have made demands. The release of Muslims prisoners in U.S. prisons.

[Geronimo]

Have you been reading Jill Carrolls account of went on while she was kidnapped? It wis Very interesting:

Back to Story - Help
Hostage: The Jill Carroll Story – Part 2 : A spy with a homing device By Jill Carroll and Peter Grier, Staff writers for the Christian Science Monitor
Tue Aug 15, 4:00 AM ET



When Jill Carroll was nearly 4 years old, her family held a picnic at Kensington Park, a beach and lake recreation area outside Detroit. At one point, her mother, Mary Beth Carroll, realized that Jill had disappeared.

Mary Beth turned around and saw a strange man walking away, his arms extended as if he were a fork lift. His cargo was Jill, who was lying on her back, screaming and punching.

When Mary Beth caught up to him, the man said he thought the little girl was lost. Only later, after the shock had worn off, did she realize he might have been trying to abduct her daughter.

At least she fought, her mother thought.

Mary Beth Carroll took some comfort from this memory after her daughter was seized in Baghdad. Jill would be terrified, Mary Beth believed. But she would not cower.

Mary Beth, a retired high school teacher, lives in Evanston, Ill. On the morning of Jan. 7, she was in Minneapolis visiting her parents.

Her cellphone rang at 5:30 a.m., rousing her from sleep. A woman from the State Department was on the line. She was sympathetic but direct. "Steel yourself, Mrs. Carroll," she said. "Your daughter has been abducted and her translator killed."

Mary Beth called Jill's twin sister, Katie, and other family members, then quickly showered and dressed.

An hour or so later, Marshall Ingwerson, managing editor of the Monitor, reached her. Calmly, Mary Beth told him that Jill could think on her feet and was probably smarter (with an IQ of 140) than her kidnappers.

Mr. Ingwerson thought Jill's mother was incredibly strong and was trying to comfort him. But she was really trying to comfort herself.

The first day, she thought she'd never sleep again. But she was so on edge that her body became exhausted. Jim Carroll, Jill's father who lives in North Carolina, experienced the same phenomenon. The whole ordeal was grueling, but even on the worst days, sleep came quickly for most of the family.

–P.G.

***

I spent my first full day of captivity sitting in a plastic chair in the second-floor bedroom of a house in Baghdad, while the sound of gunfire echoed around me.

I kept thinking, it's just Baghdad, that's the way it is. But the shooting, which had begun the night before, went on all day. Some of it was close.

Around dusk Abu Rasha, the No. 2 in charge and owner of the house, came into the room. He looked exhausted.

"I'm very, very tired, all day I'm fighting with the soldiers," he said. Then he made a ggggg-ggg sound, in imitation of an automatic weapon.

He sat down on the bed and sighed.

"They're right here. They're very near," he said. "Why, Jill? Why are the soldiers here? Why are the soldiers so near here?"

The question was an accusation.

I realized he thought I was somehow telling the US military where I was. For my own safety, I needed to make him see I was very upset by that idea.

"I don't know! I don't know!" I said, my voice rising.

"You don't have a mobile phone?" he said. "Maybe in your hair?"

I ripped off my head scarf and shook my hair loose. This was completely inappropriate behavior that would normally have deeply offended a Muslim man as apparently devout as he, but I was desperate.

His hands went through my hair, checking my scalp for whatever he imagined I might have hidden there. Finally, he was satisfied. He left the room.

I collapsed into the plastic chair and started to cry, silently, afraid he would be angry if he heard me.

But suddenly he returned. He rushed over, grabbed my hand, and knelt next to me.

"I'm so sorry. No, Jill, don't cry. I'm so, so, so sorry," he said, emphatically. "No, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm your brother."

He was overwrought. Why should he care if I was upset? He'd kidnapped me, after all.

I knew I had just learned something important, something that might help me get through whatever was to come.

The next day I was told that US and Iraqi soldiers had raided the Um al-Qura Mosque – just a mile from Adnan al-Dulaimi's office.

Much later, I learned that the raid was prompted by a tip from an Iraqi civilian about my location. It was the closest US forces would come to rescuing me over the next three months.

• • •

In the first minutes of my kidnapping the insurgents, who had seized me and killed Alan, seemed shocked at their success. They didn't appear to have a plan for what to do next.

But in the days that followed, a pattern developed that held throughout my captivity.

I was moved often. They provided me meals that Iraqis would think fit for guests, as well as small luxuries such as expensive toiletries.

Yet I was a prisoner. My captors would unexpectedly explode with bitter accusations that I was a spy, or Jewish, or hiding a homing device. They'd boast about their exploits fighting – and once sharing a meal – with American soldiers while I was in captivity.

In response, my mood would veer wildly. One moment I'd be sure they were going to kill me. The next I'd think they were going to let me go, that it was only a matter of time.

Overall, I just wanted it to be over with, whatever "it" was going to be. I remember being in a hurry to get done with it from the moment it began.

• • •

That first day, they were spooked by how close the soldiers had come to finding me. Abu Rasha said they had to move to the house of Abu Ali, his "brother." I thought he meant his real brother. Later, I realized this was just a reference to a fellow mujahideen.

Abu Rasha packed my stuff for me, but forgot to put in the toothpaste and shampoo they'd given me the night before. I thought, maybe there's a reason he didn't put them in – desperately overanalyzing everything. I asked about them, and he put them in the bag.

Abu Rasha removed my glasses (I'd found the missing lens in the car) and put two black scarves over my head and face so I wouldn't be able to see where they were taking me. Hanging onto his arm, I stumbled blindly out of the house and into a car, trying to suck fresh air through the suffocating layers of black polyester.

After a short drive we switched cars, and I cowered, motionless in the strange, new back seat. Soon I realized that there were children next to me, and men in the front seat.

A cassette blared a recitation of the Koran and every few minutes the nervous men would mutter "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar," as we drove through the darkness.

Then one of them said in Arabic, "What are you? What are you?"

A tiny voice next to me replied, "I'm a mujahid," a holy warrior.

It was a boy – I'd learn that his name was Ismael, and he was 5 years old. Just a child, already indoctrinated.

After some 20 minutes, the car stopped and a woman's gloved hand grasped mine, guiding me out of the car and into a house. My heart was racing; the adrenaline hadn't stopped in 24 hours. Barely a day had passed and I was a broken, quivering, fearful shell.

She lifted the scarves. In a rush of air and light I saw her face, smiling and welcoming in a sitting room lined with cushions. Abu Rasha entered, and the woman flipped down a black scarf on her head, covering all but her eyes.

"This is Um Ali and this is Abu Ali," Abu Rasha told me, smiling. Um is Arabic for mother, Abu is father. But all my captors' names were fake, as each adopted a nom de guerre in my presence.

I looked to the left to a rotund man with a stubbly salt-and-pepper beard and grandfatherly eyes. He was smiling, too, and looked friendly.

"Do you know Abu Ali?" said Abu Rasha. "Do you know him from yesterday?"

"No," I said.

I looked at him again – and then I did know who he was. He was the man that held the gun on Adnan, my driver, during my abduction – the fat guy with the beard.

"Oh no," I thought to myself. This was not OK.

Next part: Shooting the first video.

[Geronimo]

Back to Story - Help
Hostage: The Jill Carroll Story – Part 3: The first video By Jill Carroll and Peter Grier, Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor
Wed Aug 16, 4:00 AM ET



Monday morning ? two days after the kidnapping ? my captors began trying to convert me to Islam.

At first, they sat me down in front of the television and turned on a satellite channel which airs programs about Islam in English. After a while Abu Ali ? the salt-and-pepper bearded man who had helped kidnap me ? came into the room carrying a Koran.

He was eager to show me the similarities between Islam and Christianity, so he was telling me how many stories from the Bible are actually in the Koran. I was anxious to make him like me and feel I was sympathetic to him, so much so that I began using more of my Arabic.

He and the others marveled at how much of their language I seemed to have picked up in just one day.

I tried to listen to Abu Ali's lesson attentively as he translated complicated Koranic Arabic into more basic Arabic he thought I could understand. He was very pleased that I showed interest in learning. He kept saying there was no pressure, no pressure in Islam, that they were forbidden from forcing people to convert. True acceptance must come from a free will.

They'd kidnapped me, and they all had guns ready to kill me, but, oh no, no pressure there. I falsely assured him that I felt no pressure. I have always been interested in learning about Islam. But only so that I can understand the people I'm covering as a journalist.

Later on, this would come back to haunt me.

? ? ?

Meanwhile, the rest of the world was just beginning to hear about Jill Carroll's kidnapping. Journalists in Baghdad had learned of it minutes after it happened, but most held off on reporting the attack. The reason: the Monitor had asked the media to temporarily remain quiet about the crime.

As he hopped from airport to airport on his way into Baghdad, staff writer Scott Peterson had called Boston to add his voice to those of TV network executives and Baghdad reporters who were forcefully arguing for a news blackout. It was a question of Jill's safety and hostage value. If the kidnappers had made a mistake, and hadn't known they were snatching a young US female reporter, a blackout might provide them space to release her unharmed. If they had targeted her ? a scenario that seemed more likely ? the blackout might buy time for a quick negotiation, and make Jill seem less valuable.

More critically, a blackout might protect Jill if she was hiding her Arabic or lying to her kidnappers about her name or background.

The Western media who live in Baghdad are a tight group and consult on everything from security to parties; thus they're easy to reach en masse. On Jan. 7, managing editor Marshall Ingwerson sent them a formal request to sit on stories about Jill. From his small office off the Monitor newsroom, Mr. Ingwerson fielded a steady stream of inquiries.

"We'd prefer you not write," he told callers. "Most of your colleagues are respecting this blackout."

That was true ? most did. Some helped enforce it, alerting the Monitor to isolated stories popping up on the Web.

But Jill wasn't quickly released. And after two days had passed, editors around the world began to grumble. The executive editor of the Associated Press contacted Ingwerson to argue it was time to go public.

Finally, the Monitor agreed. It issued a statement identifying Jill as a "freelance reporter." Her work for foreign publications, rather than her US clients, was emphasized. The point, again, was to lower her perceived value.

The blackout taught editors something about the degree of cooperation they could expect from media colleagues. Some hadn't expected it to last five minutes, yet it had lasted for days. Monitor editors began to formulate a plan ? something strategic ? for shaping Jill's image in the Middle East.

? P.G.

***

Monday afternoon the kidnappers called me into the sitting room. Sitting against a wall was a man wearing a kaffiyeh ? the traditional Arab men's headdress, made of checked fabric ? wrapped around his head and face. All I could see were his ink-black eyes.

Ink Eyes addressed me in English. His voice had a familiar, gravelly quality.

"Are you happy here?" he asked. "Is everything OK?"

I knew that voice ? it was the interpreter, the man who'd grilled me about my background in the initial hours of my captivity. I soon learned that he was more than an interpreter; he was their leader.

He went on to say that his group had kidnapped a French journalist a year earlier, and that she'd asked why she was treated so well. "So you'll say you were treated well when you go home," he'd told her.

Another shock ? these were the men who'd taken Florence Aubenas. A French foreign correspondent for the paper Liberation, she was kidnapped in Baghdad in January 2005.

Well, at least she'd been released, though at the time I didn't know it was after a five-month ordeal.

Ink Eyes kept talking. "We need to make a video of you," he said. "We want your family to see this. We want to make them see you in a bad way so that they want to move quickly."

A vision flashed through my head: I was going to be one of those hostages surrounded by men with guns in a video broadcast on Al Jazeera. I'd always worried about becoming one of them.

Seeing my alarm, they said I didn't have to make the video if I didn't want to. I assured them I did want to. They were armed, I didn't want to know the consequences if I said no.

Then the man with the black eyes said, "Jill, where is your mobile [phone]? Yesterday, the American soldiers came very close, very close to this place where you were. Why did they do that?"

Again, they were accusing me of communicating with the US military. This was bad.

"I am the leader of this little group, and I'm a little more sophisticated than my friends here," he continued. "Do you have something in your body, something to send a signal to your government?"

Then he told me a story: He'd had a friend held at the US prison at Abu Ghraib. This friend claimed that Marines had given him medicine that put him to sleep, many times. After he got out, he went to the doctor, had an X-ray, and they'd found an electronic tracking device implanted in his body.

"If you have this in your body, tell me now and we'll go and take it out," Ink Eyes said, making a plucking gesture with his hand.

"No, I don't have this! I don't have this!" I nearly shouted through tears. "Bring a woman. We'll go in the bathroom right now, and I'll take all my clothes off and she can look at me and see that I don't have anything."

He waved his hand and said that wouldn't prove I didn't have a transmitter implanted in my body. Then he changed the subject, apparently letting go of the issue. Eventually, dinner for the men arrived ? fish, an expensive treat in Iraq, in honor of me.

I left the room to go eat with the women and children. But it was clear that this suspicion was not going away.

After dinner they told me to put on a track suit they'd given me two days earlier and remove my head scarf. I wanted to wear my hijab if they were going to film me; they said no, they wanted to make my hair messy, make me look bad.

They brought me back into the sitting room, and men began filing in, carrying AK-47s and RPGs. They were cavalier about their weapons; one AK was lying on the ground, pointed right at me. I thought, "If that thing goes off, it's going to blow off my leg."

They were holding up a sheet, moving it here and there, trying to find the best light. There were maybe 10 men in the room, and each had an opinion; it was "no, no, no, here," and then "no, no, no, over here."

Ink Eyes had written up a short speech, but he wasn't going to deliver it. Abu Rasha, the man who'd fought soldiers the day before in Baghdad, was going to do it instead. He kept practicing it aloud; I didn't understand most of it, except for when he said "CIA."

Then the leader turned and coached me intently. I was to say that they were mujahideen fighting to defend their country, that they wanted women freed from Abu Ghraib prison, and the US military, particularly the Marines, were killing and arresting their women and destroying their houses.

And I must cry, on cue.

Abu Rasha donned a jumpsuit and wrapped his head in a kaffiyeh. Two others did the same. I sat down in front of them and the camera rolled.

I started to give my speech. Abu Ali standing behind the camera ran his fingers down his cheeks, to signal that I needed to cry.

It took me a while to work up to the crying part. But I had a lot of pent-up emotion and stress, and by the time we finished, I was crying for real. (Later, I learned that Al Jazeera only aired about 30 seconds ? without audio ? of that first four-minute tape. The tears were never broadcast.)

As the taping ended, I put my head down and I just kept crying. I heard Abu Rasha sigh behind me in a sympathetic way, like he felt bad, and some of the other men were making little noises like they felt bad that I was sitting there crying in front of them.

Ink Eye's reaction was different. He showed no sympathy. And I knew his opinion of me ? my personal character ? might make the difference in whether I lived or died.

He said, "We have to do this again."

He wanted me to cry more and talk longer, and say how the Marines were destroying things, destroying their homes.

They had a special enmity for the US Marines. What they didn't know ? and I hoped they would never find out ? was that I had been embedded with the Marines for five weeks in November and December.

Back then, the lieutenant of the platoon I was with had said that if anyone ever kidnapped me, a platoon of Marines would come to my rescue.

So, in the retake of the video I made a point of emphasizing the word "Marines." I said, "Their government isn't of the Iraqi people. It is a government brought by the American government and by the MARINES..."

I wanted them to know I was thinking of them. Come get me, guys. Please, come save me.

Next part: A mother as a suicide bomber.


Key people involved:

Abu Nour ? Leader of Jill Carroll's kidnappers. Aka Ink Eyes. English/Arabic interpreter during her first day of captivity. Abu Nour is a nom de guerre. Abu means father, and in the Middle East it is followed by the first name of the oldest offspring: "Father of Nour."

Abu Rasha ? Nom de guerre of No. 2 kidnapper. Boss of Carroll's guards. During her first night of captivity, she was kept at his house in Baghdad.

Abu Ali ? Nom de guerre of man in charge of an insurgent cell under Abu Nour. Participated in Carroll's abduction. Has a stubble beard.

Um Ali ? Wife of Ali. Guarded Carroll at all times in the three weeks of captivity.

Abu Hassan ? Nom de guerre of No. 1 guard of Carroll. Trim, veteran.

Abu Qarrar ? Nom de guerre of No. 2 guard of Carroll. Rotund, new recruit.

For a complete list of important people involved in this story, go to http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/ca...ast/index.html.

[Geronimo]

Hostage: The Jill Carroll Story – Part 4 : A mother as suicide bomber By Jill Carroll and Peter Grier, Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor
Thu Aug 17, 5:00 AM ET



Exhausted, Jim Carroll walked the streets of Washington, headed back to his hotel. He'd hardly eaten all day, so he ducked into a bar for dinner. He hadn't been there long when his cellphone rang. It was the FBI. They wanted to know the family's decision.

The previous day, Jan. 17, a video demanding the release of Iraqi women prisoners had aired on Al Jazeera. A 72-hour deadline was given.

This wasn't going to be pleasant. "We're not going your way," Jim told his FBI contact. "We're going to go with the sympathy statement."

What do you say to your daughter's kidnappers? It was a question Carroll felt woefully unqualified to answer. He was a software person, an entrepreneur, not a hostage negotiator. Insurgents had seized Jill Carroll in Baghdad 11 days ago; it was time for her parents to publicly plead for her life. But how? That was something on which experts – all well-meaning – couldn't agree.

The FBI wanted the father – him – to shake his fist, in essence; to go on TV and address the men who held Jill as murderers and thugs.

In Baghdad, Jill's colleagues at The Christian Science Monitor thought that would misfire in the Middle East. They said the words should reflect how much Jill's family loved and missed her. And the message should come from Jill's mother, Mary Beth.

Well, Jim and Mary Beth and Katie, Jill's twin sister, had been over this and over this and over it again. They couldn't thrash any more. Katie insisted that they should trust people Jill trusted; so be it. They'd go with the Monitor's Baghdad correspondents, and the softer appeal from her mother.

On the other end of the phone, Jim's FBI contact sounded very unhappy. He was polite, but clear: The bureau did not think this was a good idea. Not a good idea at all.

Jim hung up. He felt he was living in a new world, where you got 1 percent of the data you needed to make a decision, but it didn't matter; you had to decide anyway, you couldn't walk away, and you had to do it now, right now – and the price of a misstep might be a vibrant young woman's life.

Jill's life.

Despair billowed over him.

– P.G.

***

As we stood in the small kitchen, Abu Ali, the insurgent with the salt-and-pepper beard who had abducted me, proudly declared that his wife wanted to die.

"Um Ali wants to be a martyr. She wants to drive a car bomb!" he said, beaming.

Of course, she'd have to wait, since she was now four months pregnant. It is forbidden in Islam to kill a fetus at that age, he explained.

"Oh, OK, OK, oh wow," I said. I feigned confusion while I tried to think of what to say.

The chaos of dinner preparation swirled around us. The kitchen was typically Iraqi: a cramped space with thin metal countertops that have no cabinets beneath.

Someone had sewed a skirt for the countertop out of gaudy fabric, but one part had torn away. Next to the refrigerator was a giant freezer, covered all over with stickers advertising Maggi-brand soups.

Three children played around our feet – all progeny of the would-be bomber.

I was still unused to captivity, still learning the boundaries, both physical and mental, that my kidnappers had imposed. I didn't want to offend. But I was shocked at the talk of a mother's suicide; shocked that Um Ali would blush at her husband's praise of this plan.

"Oh, I didn't know women could be car bombers," was all I could muster.

Later I was told that this was the only way women could be part of the mujahideen. The men could have the glory of fighting in battle. Women got to blow themselves up.

Meanwhile, the big silver platters of food were ready. Men carried them out to the group of insurgents meeting behind the closed door of the sitting room. Based on their comments, this house seemed to be in western Baghdad or near Abu Ghraib.

I talked with Um Ali and other women in the kitchen. Yes, I traveled back and forth between countries for my job, I said. They replied that it was wrong for them to work, that they left school at age 12 to learn to cook and keep house.

Then the dinner platters returned, with the food ravaged – rice everywhere, bones with the chicken chewed off, nothing left but scraps, really.

And the women sat and began to eat the scraps.

I couldn't believe it! After all the time they'd spent preparing the meal, they got leftovers.

But I sat down with them. And, as I would often do with women over the next three months, I ate from the remains of the communal stew.

• • •

It was a surreal experience. Alone in the Al Jazeera television studio, Jim Carroll stared at the camera, aware that at any moment it would switch on and broadcast his image around the world. He didn't want that image to be him scratching his nose, so he stayed unnaturally still as the minutes ticked away.

A day earlier, Mary Beth had appeared on CNN, making the family's first televised response to the kidnappers' demands. "They've picked the wrong person ... if they're looking for someone who is an enemy of Iraq," she said, adding to her scripted statement.

Now, it was Jim's turn.

Finally, after a quarter of an hour, the light blipped, and, on Jan. 20, Jill Carroll's father made his global TV debut. Live, for the 6:00 a.m. news feed in the Middle East.

"I want to speak directly to the men holding my daughter Jill because they also may be fathers like me...."

When he left the studio after finishing, the woman who had produced the shoot came up to him. Tears were running down her cheeks. "Bingo," thought Jim. His message appeared to have gotten through. Maybe other tears were running down other cheeks right now, in Iraq.

It had been a busy week. Three days ago, the first video of Jill as a hostage had appeared on Al Jazeera; she'd looked tired and stressed.

On the positive side, the video had been followed by an outpouring of statements calling for Jill's release, from Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Iraq's Muslim Scholars Association, and Sunni political leader Adnan al-Dulaimi, among others. In Baghdad, Monitor reporter Dan Murphy had been on the phone working his contacts in the Arab world, tapping into a growing disapproval of insurgents taking innocent civilians.

Mr. Dulaimi perhaps was a particularly important catch. Jill had been seeking to interview him just prior to her abduction. Some Westerners in Baghdad suspected that he, or someone who worked in his office, had been involved in the crime.

Jim was worn out by the struggle over family statements. That had been intense. The FBI's position – that it was best the father talk strongly in a man-to-man manner – was the considered opinion of bureau counterterror experts, who'd tested it before focus groups of Arabs. Iraq was a male-dominated society, after all.

But the Monitor's correspondents in Baghdad, plus the British security firm there, thought that approach was culturally insensitive. Iraqi men revere their mothers, they insisted, so the first appeal should come from Mary Beth. And it should depict Jill, not as a lone adult, but as the missing piece of a family – another point they felt would appeal to Iraqi hearts.

In the end the family opted for the mother-first tactics. A day after Mary Beth's appearance, Jim made his own televised appeal, albeit with words watered down from the FBI's language. He appeared on both Al Jazeera, the most popular Arabic network, and its more reserved competitor, Al Arabiya.

Neither Mary Beth nor Jim were afraid of the camera. But they were afraid of saying the wrong thing.

In her first appearance, Mary Beth took a few questions, and in answering one said that Jill was a good "ambassador" for Iraq, since she'd reported the struggles of Iraqis' daily lives. But later someone told her that the word "ambassador," in Arabic, translates as "government official," not "general emissary." And the last thing the family wanted to imply was that Jill worked for any government.

So the family limited media appearances to scripted statements. They asked friends not to speak to the press. Almost without exception, their friends complied, with some even slamming the door on reporters.

But for all their attention to the subject, there was one important thing about their appearances that Jim and Mary Beth didn't know: Would Jill's captors be watching?

– P.G.

***

Held against my will, I learned more about Iraqi insurgents than I would have dreamed possible. On one level, I got a firsthand look at the way they live. While I was imprisoned alone in rooms for long periods, I was also allowed to mix with insurgent families in some of the houses where I was held. I even played with their youngest children – a small joy that helped me endure.

On another level, I heard a lot about what they think, both about themselves and the US. I wanted them to see me as more valuable alive than dead, so I told them that as a reporter I could write their story if I was freed.

They seized on this idea, perhaps to a degree I hadn't anticipated. After dinner, some of the men drew up plastic chairs in a walkway area in the middle of the house and held an impromptu press conference – minus questions, and with me as the lone member of the press.

They insisted that they weren't terrorists, that they were just defending their country against an occupation. They had nothing against Americans, they said. It was the US government that was their enemy.

"If you come to us as a guest to our country, we will open all of our homes to you and feed you and you are welcome," said one of the men that night. "But if you come to us as an enemy, we will drink your blood and there will not be one of you left standing."

I hoped the little briefing would help establish my persona as a reporter. To placate them, I'd memorized verses in the Koran. But I never seriously considered the idea of converting. As I learned more about this brand of Islam, and the life of women tied by marriage or family to the insurgency, the more convinced I was that I couldn't even pretend to convert. As long as I was seen as a reporter and a Christian woman, I figured they might tolerate my missteps. But if I acquiesced to conversion, even if it was insincere, would a "good Muslim" – like Um Ali – also be required to embrace martyrdom?

At moments like this, I thought they were becoming more comfortable with me. Perhaps they wouldn't kill me.

Um Ali's son, Bakr, was 3 years old, cute, and spoiled rotten. He'd jump in my lap, and we'd play a little game: He'd put his nose against mine, his head against my head, and we would whisper really quietly together, him in Arabic, me in English. In the early days of my captivity, we'd do it often, and I'd look in his little eyes, and it really comforted me. It felt so good just to hug somebody.

Still, getting through each hour was an accomplishment. Every day was so long. Um Ali would do something nice, like bring me some tea, and I'd try to react normally. But then I'd remember that they'd killed Alan, my interpreter.

That refrain was constantly in my head: Don't be fooled, Jill. They killed Alan. Don't be fooled.

Next part: Mujahideen movies of attacks.

[Geronimo]

Hostage: The Jill Carroll Story – Part 5 : Mujahideen movies By Jill Carroll and Peter Grier, Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor
Fri Aug 18, 5:00 AM ET



One afternoon in the first week after I'd been taken – and been moved to yet another house near Abu Ghraib – Abu Ali called me into a big sitting room with green velveteen couches. On the far wall, above the TV, was a gigantic poster of waterfalls and rocks and trees.

It was beautiful. I could stare at it and get lost. I thought, I wish I was there, I wish I was there.

But my captors wanted me to look at something very different: DVDs of them waging war.

By their count, they were killing dozens or even hundreds of soldiers a day. They estimated that Al Qaeda in Iraq had killed at least 40,000 US soldiers. They could prove it, they said, with videos of their operations showing Humvees and tanks blowing up and snipers shooting soldiers.

So Abu Ali – the captor with a stubbly beard – sat me down and showed me the videos. They were in Arabic and were stamped with the symbols of various insurgent groups, and included audio overlays of mujahideen chanting in low, somber tones.

One video showed all these men who were going to be suicide car bombers. They interviewed them, and then showed a field, with cars lined up, and each man getting into a car – waving, just euphoric – and then driving off.

Others had pictures of an American Humvee driving along – and then it would blow up, and they'd cut to a graphic of a lightning flash, and thunder clapping.

Abu Ali would glance over at me as I watched the videos, asking me what I thought of them. I couldn't say anything good, but I tried to say things that were true, like "Oh, this is the first time I've ever seen this. I didn't know this was out there."

To Abu Ali, though, this was their mission, a righteous path; this was their work for God.

While I sat there watching them, I felt the insurgents were sending me a message: They hate Americans so much, they're proud of these attacks. It's normal to them.

Surely they were going to kill me. How could they not?

***

The first set of phone-recording equipment that the FBI brought to Jim Carroll's North Carolina home didn't work. A second set, shipped in from the Charlotte office, didn't work either. Eventually, agents assigned to the Jill Carroll case got the standard wiretap electronics in place.

From the beginning, the FBI identified Jim as someone who could handle hostage negotiations. He received rudimentary training in what to do if contacted: Keep talking, keep them on the phone, try to set a time for a call back.

But no one was sure which numbers Jill would remember and pass along to her jailers. So taps were readied for a number of phones. If the kidnappers called, the FBI would use the recording to try to identify them and their location.

In Baghdad, Monitor staff writer Scott Peterson put a piece of climbing tape on one of his phones, and drew on it a green eye, to remind him which line the government was watching. He and staff writer Dan Murphy were pursuing their own leads with Iraqi sources and seeking the help of Sunni politicians known to have insurgent contacts.

Between them, Messrs. Peterson and Murphy could draw on decades of experience working in dangerous environments. As a reporter and photographer, Peterson's hot-spot assignments stretched from Angola to Afghanistan. In 1993, he took a machete blow to the head from a mob that killed four journalists in Somalia. Later, he was one of the very few correspondents to enter the Rwandan capital, Kigali, when the genocide began.

Murphy lived for 10 years in Indonesia, where he covered sectarian violence and became one of the world's experts on Al Qaeda's operations in Southeast Asia. In Baghdad, he'd been one of Jill's mentors.

Meanwhile, back in the US, the Monitor enlisted the help of Faye Bowers, a recently retired Washington correspondent with extensive contacts in the dark world of intelligence. She had been instrumental in the negotiations to release Monitor reporter David Rohde, who was jailed by Bosnian Serbs for 10 days in 1995 and won a Pulitzer for stories revealing the first evidence of the Srebrenica massacre.

At Ms. Bowers's request, US officials also contacted important Sunnis in Iraq, and pushed them to do all they could to secure Jill's release. Jordanian and European officials, particularly the Germans, provided context about their own efforts to free hostages in Iraq. And an army of Bowers's contacts, many of them ex-spies, scrolled through their memories, searching for old friends and contacts in the Arab world who might help.

– P.G.

***

At the beginning of my ordeal, I had hoped my kidnappers were amateurs who wouldn't really know what to do with me and would start to get very nervous after a few days. Then they'd let me go.

I knew they were Iraqis, which was good. It was the foreign-born insurgents – such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who beheaded hostages.

They seemed a small group, and they told me they had come together and forged their identity fighting the US military for control of the restive city of Fallujah in a Sunni- dominated area west of Baghdad.

But after about a week in captivity – about the time of the showing of the jihadi videos – it became increasingly clear to me that they were the real deal.

During the precious few hours when the electricity worked, they would sometimes plug in a cassette player, and an angry voice would blare in classical Arabic from the room across the hall, where the guards slept.

I usually only understood a few words, like "America," "Israel," and "occupation," but the point was clear.

"Do you know who that is?" one of the guards asked me at one point. "That is Sheikh Abu Musab. Is he a good man? What is your opinion of Zarqawi?"

I dodged the question. But inside, I felt the fear welling up. These were Zarqawi people! I was an American. I thought again, there was no way I was getting out of this alive.

***

Perhaps the knowledge of what would happen to Khalid if he disappeared into the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior was what did it. Sitting on a bed in the Monitor's Baghdad apartment, he finally broke down.

"I knew you wouldn't believe me if I told you the truth!" he sobbed.

By this point, Khalid (not his real name) had worked for the Monitor and other media organizations as an interpreter, on and off, for a year-and-a-half. He was a gentle soul, thin and nervous in a birdlike way. He'd come via recommendation from someone in the Coalition Provisional Authority, back when that still existed, and Murphy liked working with him. He was interested in the way that religion and politics fit together, as was Murphy himself.

And for days now, Khalid had said he had a source – two separate sources, actually – who knew where Jill was.

The information – revealed in dribs and drabs over time – was detailed in a way that made it sound credible. It even jibed with other leads coming in. She was being held, allegedly, in Al Adl – the same neighborhood where she was kidnapped and a part of the city known to be rife with insurgents. There were two teams that took turns guarding her, each composed of three men. The house was detached, and the opening in its surrounding wall was a white metal gate – sheet metal, not bars, and streaked with dirt. Behind the gate sat the Monitor driver's maroon Toyota with a broken window and bullet holes in the side.

The Monitor's Baghdad team had passed this information along, and the Hereford, England-based security firm hired by the newspaper sent an Iraqi employee into the neighborhood to eyeball possible houses. He found four or five.

But then one of Khalid's sources went out of town. And his story began to change. Maybe the gate was ... black.

What was going on? Late one night, a colonel from the Iraqi Interior Ministry arrived to interview Khalid in Arabic. The colonel was a busy man; he talked to the interpreter a bit, then left on other business. But he made himself clear: At this point, if Khalid didn't name his source, Khalid would have to come in to the ministry.

He didn't have to say that bad things happened at the ministry, even to good people.

Khalid was shaken. Murphy, too, was concerned. He sat beside him, and gently asked, again, for the real story. And finally it came out.

His wife had visions, said Khalid. They're painful and difficult for her, he said, but it's a gift. She'd warned him not to get involved, but he'd wanted to help. He'd given his wife one of Jill's cherry-tinted hairs from a hair band which he'd secretly taken from the office. She'd been the one who "saw" where Jill was. Khalid believed her. But he knew Murphy and Peterson wouldn't.

The reporters were stunned. For weeks now, they'd been pursuing this lead. Now, it seemed, they had been sending people into dangerous neighborhoods based on the musings of a clairvoyant.

From the beginning, investigative tracks dealing with Jill's possible whereabouts gave the family and her employers a sense of hope and momentum.

What they didn't provide, in the end, was Jill. Leads dried up. Sources disappeared. Demands for ransom turned out to be attempts at extortion.

The curious case of the clairvoyant was perhaps the most extreme example of where tracks went. But it wasn't unique. Other sources claimed to have a video taken on a cellphone – and described her in detail.

Notes scribbled daily on legal pads by managing editor Marshall Ingwerson give a sense of the rise and fall of these efforts.

From 1/11/06: "New lead. HWG [the US Embassy's Hostage Working Group] onworking. Source is someone we've worked with before ... contradictory to [The New York Times's Dexter] Filkins lead...."

From 1/14/06: "2 tracks still in play. Filkins update: By chance his sources – guard at racetrack saw her Thursday while she was being transferred...."

From 1/19/06: "No more on Dexter's track. Contradictory info on [Scott Peterson's] track."

From 1/20/06: "Dexter track definitely dead...."

One morning, the British security man under contract to the Monitor told Murphy and Peterson that the body of a Western woman had been found in Baghdad. Police were checking the morgue. The two reporters kept the information to themselves, tensely awaiting verification. The report proved untrue.

While the leads were thin, the public support poured in. The Monitor would post on its website a daily selection of e-mails and letters from Jill Carroll supporters of all faiths, and all walks of life. During some of the darkest nights, Mary Beth Carroll would go to her computer and draw some comfort from the strangers' missives.

– P.G.

... The only right thing to do for any true Muslim or any human being is to release her unharmed. Our prayers are with her and her family. – Tilmann Deutschbein, Auxerre, France

Dear [Jill],

...Your innocence is stronger than all the cruelty. Stay strong and return quickly to us. – Mohammed Ahmed, Islamabad, Pakistan

I am joining with my family, friends, and church to say we are all praying every moment ... to see this beautiful, dedicated young woman free.... We pray for the captors, that they will act with wisdom and free her immediately, and then we will listen to their concerns and support their needs.

Our love surrounds Jill and her family. We will not stop this vigil until Jill is returned. – Judith Stump, Aliso Viejo, Calif.

We've been praying for you. We also tried folding 1,000 paper cranes. (Did you know in Japan, if a sick person folds 1,000 paper cranes, the gods will make them better?) I also like the Army. – Andy Banner, fourth-grader, St. Anthony's School, Florence, S.C.

Next part: Reciting Koranic verses.

[Geronimo]

Back to Story - Help
Hostage: The Jill Carroll Story - Part 6: Reciting Koranic verses By Jill Carroll and Peter Grier, Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor
Mon Aug 21, 4:00 AM ET



Um Ali - the wife of Abu Ali, my stubble-bearded captor - was my constant companion during the first three weeks of captivity. She was about 25, very pretty with big eyes. Wherever I was moved, she came, too, along with some of her children. At first, I thought she might be an ally or at least sympathetic. She wasn't.

One night - one of the first nights in a new house in Abu Ghraib - Um Ali and I had lain down on the thin mattresses that served as beds by night and seats by day. I had just taken off my head scarf when suddenly a guard rattled the key violently in the lock and burst into the room, flipping on the light.

In a frenzy, using very basic English, he ordered me up. I leapt up, my hands shaking so much I couldn't get my head scarf repinned.

The guard started wrapping a red-and-white-checked kaffiyeh around my mouth and head, violently and tightly. I opened my eyes wide in terror, silently pleading for help to Um Ali, who was standing next to me.

Her gaze returned no sympathy. The guard whispered orders to her in Arabic that I couldn't understand.

"Hurry, hurry, quickly, quickly," the guard hissed angrily in Arabic.

The kaffiyeh was wrapped so hard that the dry fabric was cutting into my mouth.

"They're going to haul me out and shoot me in the head," I thought in panic.

He was so angry. His hatred was obvious from the violence with which he wrapped the kaffiyeh around my head. He didn't know me, but I was an American, a symbol.

Um Ali had my glasses. As they moved me to a chair in the hall, I heard a "click, click." Terrified, I thought it was a gun being cocked.

"If an American soldier comes here you don't speak," he said.

That was the reason for the frenzy! He thought there were soldiers nearby. He then demanded that I recite the Koran.

"I just have to live through this. I just have to live through this," I thought, sitting, head bowed, blind, and breathing with difficulty. I was terrified.

After about 20 minutes it appeared no soldiers were coming. He led me back into the room and barked a command to sleep.

There were no whispered words of comfort or explanation from Um Ali.

In my early days of captivity, at one of the first houses I'd been held, an elderly woman who'd been visiting looked sadly at me and told me that inshallah - "God willing" - I would go home soon.

Then the visitor turned to Um Ali and sighed that my captivity was thuloum, or an injustice.

"This is not thuloum," Um Ali snapped back.

My female companion/jailer/suicide-bomber-wannabe grew more irritated and despondent as the days wore on. Um Ali was stuck with me in a dim little room.

Then one evening she bounded in with a grin. She was delighted by the news reports that thousands of homes in California had been destroyed by forest fires.

"This is justice" wrought by God, she said, "because the soldiers destroy our houses."

. . .

Part of Um Ali's growing hardness toward me came as I tried to let her know that, despite the many hours of reciting the Koran with her, I didn't plan to convert to Islam.

In the beginning I was an eager student, as I saw how much it pleased them whenever I showed an interest in learning. But I soon realized I had made a dangerous mistake.

The more I let my captors teach me, the more they expected me to convert. After a few weeks, the question was always, "Why haven't you come to Islam yet?"

I tried to put the brakes on delicately, afraid of what they might do if they thought I was rejecting Islam. How could I tell them that adopting a new religion and code for living wasn't possible when I was held captive, racked with despair, and in fear daily for my life?

One afternoon, when I was exhausted from listening to Um Ali repeat verses of the Koran over and over so I could memorize them, I said, "I don't understand the Arabic in the Koran, and so I can't understand what it really means."

"We'll bring you an English Koran," said Abu Ali, who had overheard me. "You want this?"

They were always insisting that they didn't want to pressure me into converting, while at the same time asking me why I hadn't converted yet.

"Oh, sure," I said.

Abu Ali whipped out his cellphone, and made a call. "You have a Koran in English?" he said. "Quickly, quickly, bring it."

He sounded almost frantic as he gave the person on the other end of the line directions about where to meet him.

After about 20 minutes he returned, bearing a small, green Koran. Emblazoned in gold on the cover was "Le Qur'an." It was a French translation - not an English one.

Later, I tried telling Um Ali, gently, that I probably wasn't going to convert after all.

She said she would be angry if I didn't convert, given the time she had spent teaching me.

"We are afraid for you and don't want you to go to hell," she said. "We are afraid that we'll see you [on Judgment Day] and you'll say, 'Why didn't you save me?' "

***

In the early days, Mary Beth Carroll did Sudoku puzzles or read cards sent by well-wishers before she went to bed. A week and a half after the abduction, Jill's mother decided to attend a Sunday Mass at which Alan Enwiya was going to be memorialized. She had been invited to a Chicago-area Assyrian Christian church by some of his relatives. It turned out to be a cathartic trip.

Mary Beth and her companions arrived at the church on time - but it was almost empty. As the Mass began, it filled up, pew by pew. By the end of the emotional three-hour service it was jammed with parishioners who prayed for Alan and prayed for Jill, as Mary Beth sobbed into her handkerchief. She knew Jill would want her to be there. It made her feel closer to her absent daughter. And it was the first time she'd cried since the whole ordeal began.

The strain was also evident at the Monitor.

While the public support was heartening, Jill's emergence as an iconic figure - a smart, pretty, and idealistic American caught in the maelstrom of Iraq - heightened the pressure in Boston and Baghdad. After all, terrorists behead Western icons.

While the stress was nothing like what the Carrolls faced, Team Jill and the Baghdad Boys (staff writers Scott Peterson and Dan Murphy) felt compelled to exhaustively pursue every lead, no matter how thin. And it was taking a toll. At one point, a worried British security adviser told editors in Boston that Murphy and Peterson "go to bed at 3 a.m. every night, after plotting the next day's strategy, and wake up expecting this will be the day Jill is found. That's unrealistic, and they can't keep this up."

Through most of the time Jill was in captivity, a single 8-by-11-inch color photo of her in a hijab hung near the door of the building that houses the Monitor's Washington bureau. It had been placed there as a backdrop to a press conference by David Cook, D.C. bureau chief and the paper's public face through the crisis.

The avuncular Mr. Cook has three sons not much younger than Jill. He passed that photo, as it grew more dog-eared and tattered, every day.

"You'd come in the door and see her picture and think, 'Have I done everything I could today to help get her out?' "

- P.G.

***

I thought about escape from the beginning and made several elaborate plans. At one of the first places I was held, there was a small window in the bathroom, about six feet up. If I reached up, I could peek out, just a little bit.

I looked out two or three times. Each time, I would do it a little bit longer. I saw a field of tall grass that stretched for about half a kilometer. Behind that was a row of tall palm trees running roughly east, toward Abu Ghraib. I'd overhead them talking about the prison. And the prison meant a bazillion US marines.

But I'd been too brazen. After several days, a guard came in after breakfast and said, "A man told me yesterday you were looking out the bathroom window.

"You know, I have a very dark place under the ground. It's cold, with a very small door," he said, repeating a warning I'd been given my first night in captivity. "There's no light. I have this place."

They hammered a tarp across both the bathroom and bedroom windows. The loss of sunlight was devastating. It may not seem like much, but it was hugely demoralizing.

They watched me all the time. Even when it seemed I was alone, there were men with guns just across the hall. I was moved often. I wasn't sure which direction to run even if I got out. Escape looked impossible. All the things I had imagined about the future - marriage, children - they were just gone. They were just gone, and not going to happen.

***

Murphy and Peterson weren't investigators in the law-enforcement sense. They never visited the scene of the kidnapping, as that Baghdad neighborhood was now too dangerous. (Neither did the FBI investigators, who were not allowed to leave the safety of the US-controlled Green Zone without an armed military escort.)

But for almost three months, the two reporters made finding Jill their primary job.

In a way, they became scholars of kidnapping. Dan created a database and drew diagrams of which groups had claimed responsibility for holding which hostages and when, to look for connections. They strategized with the British security firm, the Iraqi police, and the US Embassy's Hostage Working Group in the Green Zone. They were told aspects of the FBI and US military efforts, but never given the full picture. So, they sifted through cases that might be analogous to Jill's, to see who had been released and who hadn't. They looked for things that people on the outside had done that might have helped.

In one instance, the friends of a kidnapped Australian put up posters in the neighborhood where the crime had occurred, pleading for his safety. Murphy and Peterson decided to take that idea and supersize it. They mapped out a three-stage media plan, starting with advertisements in newspapers, then moving to radio news and television public service announcements (PSAs).

Their theme was "Jill Carroll loves Iraq and loves Iraqis. She needs your help. Please help free Jill Carroll."

Each step built on the previous one. The TV spots - produced with the invaluable help of CNN Baghdad staffers - used the voices of Iraqis themselves ("Oh, she was like a sister to me") with pictures of Jill in her hijab, quotes from Mary Beth, and, in one, 30 seconds of the Sunni politician Adnan al-Dulaimi calling for her release.

And Iraqi television news directors were generous with donated time.

The point was to get people who might know something to come forward with information. But the Monitor Baghdad Boys knew they were walking a thin line. They wanted to keep Jill in Iraqi minds, as a sympathetic character -- making it harder for her captors to kill her. But they didn't want to be too loud or make her too hot a property. That might raise any ransom demand through the roof. Or, worse, it might cause her kidnappers to believe that they needed to get rid of her, fast - and that death was their best option.

- P. G.

***

One day, Ink Eyes, my chief captor, arrived for a chat. He sat just outside the doorway, out of my field of vision. I leaned against the wall, knees up, head down. I was afraid to even move.

He started by telling me about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian who was the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. He called Zarqawi his "good friend."

"He's such a good man.... If you met him, you would like him so much," Abu Nour said warmly.

But Zarqawi wasn't the head of the mujahideen any more, Abu Nour told me, he was simply one member of something new: the Mejlis Shura Mujahideen Fil Iraq.

Roughly translated, this was "Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq."

The Americans were constantly saying that the mujahideen in Iraq were led by foreigners, he said. So, the Iraqi insurgents went to Zarqawi and insisted that an Iraqi be put in charge.

Zarqawi agreed, the story went. An Iraqi named Abdullah Rashid was the new head of the council.

"You don't know who is Abdullah Rashid?" said Ink Eyes.

No, I indicated, I didn't.

"I am Abdullah Rashid!" he said.

I sat there in absolute panic. I couldn't even move. This man was telling me he was friends with Zarqawi - someone who personally beheaded hostages! And this guy was Zarqawi's boss? What did this mean?

But as I saw in coming weeks, Zarqawi remained the insurgents' hero, and the most influential member of their council, whatever Nour/Rashid's position. And it seemed to me, based on snatches of conversations, that two cell leaders under him - Abu Rasha and Abu Ahmed - might also be on the council.

At various times, I heard my captors discussing changes in their plans because of directives from the council and Zarqawi, including one in Arabic I only partially understood: something about how my case should be resolved "without money and without killing."

But that night - with the nature of those who held me spelled out for the first time - I lay on my bed motionless in the dark.

"Come, come pray," I heard Ink Eyes, aka Abu Nour, aka Abdullah Rashid, say in the next room.

Someone else recited the call to prayer. They must all be in there, gathered together.

"Allahu Akbar," the mujahideen said.

I couldn't see them, but I knew the identical motions every Sunni Muslim in the world performs in prayer. Now they were standing shoulder to shoulder, hands raised near their faces, palms out.

The wall was like paper. Only a tissue seemed to stand between their devotions to God and me.

"Allahu Akbar," they said, sighing and quietly grunting as they kneeled on the ground.

"Allahu Akbar," they repeated, as they rose from prostration. "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar," they said, with every movement.

I listened, afraid to breathe. I had to cough, but I suppressed it. I thought, "If I cough during their prayer, maybe they'll kill me."

I lay on my back, hands clasped across my stomach. Eventually I dozed off.

Next morning, I woke up in the same position.

That's the way I woke up every morning in that house - frozen in the position I'd assumed after crawling into bed. I was too afraid to move, even in my sleep.

Next part: False hopes.

Jill Carroll's captorsAbu Nour - "Ink Eyes." Leader of Jill Carroll's kidnappers. Said he was Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi, leader of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq. The council included Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Abu Rasha - Nom de guerre of the No. 2 kidnapper. Boss of Carroll's guards. During her first night of captivity, she was kept at his house in Baghdad. Appeared in first video.

Abu Ahmed - A close lieutenant of Abu Nour and appeared to be a member of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq. An Islamic scholar who had recently read an Arabic translation of a Henry Kissinger biography.

Abu Ali - Nom de guerre of the man in charge of an insurgent cell under Abu Nour. Participated in Carroll's abduction. Has a stubbly beard.

Um Ali - Wife of Ali. Guarded Carroll at all times in the first month of captivity.

How to helpAlan Enwiya is one of nearly 100 journalists and media assistants killed in Iraq since March 2003. Alan is survived by his wife, Fairuz, his two children, Martin and Mary Ann, and his parents. They have left Iraq and hope to move to the US where they have relatives.

Jill Carroll's driver, Adnan Abbas, is a witness to Alan's murder. He, his wife, and their four children (including a newborn) have also fled Iraq for their own safety.

In response to readers, the Monitor has established funds to help each family start a new life. Donations may be sent to:

The Alan Enwiya Fund c/o The Christian Science Monitor One Norway Street Boston, MA 02115

The Adnan Abbas Fund c/o The Christian Science Monitor One Norway Street Boston, MA 02115

[Woodrow]

Actually Woodrow, if you look at my post above, the kidnappers have made demands. The release of Muslims prisoners in U.S. prisons.

I see it now. I don't know how I skipped over it earlier. That ends my theory

[bint_muhammed]

Actually Woodrow, if you look at my post above, the kidnappers have made demands. The release of Muslims prisoners in U.S. prisons.

in my eyes its only fair, they should release these inncoent prisoners then the innocent journalist will also be freed! :rollseyes

[lavikor201]

in my eyes its only fair, they should release these inncoent prisoners then the innocent journalist will also be freed! :rollseyes

The majority of prisoners that the Americans hold are in no way 'innocent'. Your logic fails at that instance.

[Keltoi]

These groups know that the U.S. doesn't negotiate with terrorists. I see no logic behind this kidnapping, unless it is another of those "release every Muslim in the world or we will saw their head's off" type demands. Hopefully this group isn't one of those, and will do the honorable thing and release these men.

[ManchesterFolk]

It all goes back to violent instincts. Just like in Gaza. israel leaves... so what do the Palestinians do? Kill eachother. Am I suppose to buy they can ever be at peace with anyone when they cannot be at peace with themselves????

[bint_muhammed]

The majority of prisoners that the Americans hold are in no way 'innocent'. Your logic fails at that instance.

not talking about normal prisons, talking about Guantanomo and abu graib! trust me many of tehm are innocent!

[Keltoi]

not talking about normal prisons, talking about Guantanomo and abu graib! trust me many of tehm are innocent!

Trust you? Well, I don't know you. Sort of hard to trust you in this matter.

[Geronimo]

not talking about normal prisons, talking about Guantanomo and abu graib! trust me many of tehm are innocent!

What is your proof of that?

[Ghazi]

What is your proof of that?

:sl:

Double standards! America holds people without trail and no complains when some of their guys get kidnapped, Oh the Hypocracy!

[Geronimo]

:sl:

Double standards! America holds people without trail and no complains when some of their guys get kidnapped, Oh the Hypocracy!

That does not prove they are innocent. Where is your proof?

[wilberhum]

:sl:

Double standards! America holds people without trail and no complains when some of their guys get kidnapped, Oh the Hypocracy!

So wrong justifies wrong? If you fight evil with evil, evil will surly win.
Is it you desire for everyone to sink to the lowest common denominator?

[Ghazi]

So wrong justifies wrong? If you fight evil with evil, evil will surly win.
Is it you desire for everyone to sink to the lowest common denominator?

:sl:

I never said it was right, I said the US have no right to complain when they're doing the same.

[wilberhum]

:sl:

I never said it was right, I said the US have no right to complain when they're doing the same.

You missed a real opportunity to take the moral “High Ground”.

[Ghazi]

You missed a real opportunity to take the moral “High Ground”.

Would it make a diffrence if i did?

[wilberhum]

Would it make a diffrence if i did?

It should make a difference to you.

[bint_muhammed]

What is your proof of that?

the proof is many of them havent been proved to be terrorist! INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY!

[Keltoi]

the proof is many of them havent been proved to be terrorist! INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY!

"Innocent until proven guilty" applies to Americans under an American justice system. The prisoners in Gitmo have the advantage of neither. They are prisoners of war, for the most part. There are some there that have been picked up in anti-terror operations, and these people should be tried by a military tribunal as soon as possible. The problem is that the U.S. Supreme Court has denied the military authority in the matter until they take care of some other legal hurdles. Contrary to popular belief, the Supreme Court did not strike down the legality of Gitmo, only the process of military justice proposed by the Bush administration. This issue will hopefully be sorted out soon, and the trials will begin.

[Ghazi]

]"Innocent until proven guilty" applies to Americans under an American justice system.

:sl:

Funny I thought it was a globel value, also lets not forget Gitmo's 5 star hospatality towards their inmates.

[Keltoi]

:sl:

Funny I thought it was a globel value, also lets not forget Gitmo's 5 star hospatality towards their inmates.

You thought "innocent until proven guilty" was a global value? I wish that it was. By your "hospitality" statement, I assume you are referring to the supposed "torture" at Gitmo?

[Ghazi]

You thought "innocent until proven guilty" was a global value? I wish that it was. By your "hospitality" statement, I assume you are referring to the supposed "torture" at Gitmo?

The genral living conditions and the torture.

[Keltoi]

The general living conditions? What do you presume those are?

[Ghazi]

The general living conditions? What do you presume those are?

From Pretty Reliable sources Bad, A simple cell would do.

[Keltoi]

Who are these reliable sources?

[Ghazi]

Who are these reliable sources?

:sl:

Tipton Three, Three former inmates.

[Keltoi]

I'm not sure of their allegations, but I will look them up.

[bint_muhammed]

I'm not sure of their allegations, but I will look them up.

please do as they open your eyes to what really happens. before i started researching on these matter, also thought yeah well they are terrorist etc etc. however now its cler the media had brainwashed me into believing that. there many who are innocent and put there either because they are muslims or for other poxy reasons.

[Jayda]

I hope they are released soon...