Family appeals for release of US journalist

BAGHDAD – The family of a US woman journalist seized in in Baghdad appealed for her release after kidnappers threatened to kill her if US forces failed to free all female Iraqi prisoners within 72 hours.

Another foreigner, an engineer from Malawi, was kidnapped yesterday and people, including bodyguards and drivers, were killed in an ambush in western Baghdad. There has been a new spate of kidnappings in Iraq in recent weeks, with more than 40 foreigners are currently being held by insurgents or reported missing.A number of hostages, including Westerners, have been killed.Arabic television station Al-Jazeera late on Tuesday broadcast a brief video showing Carroll, her first appearance since she was seized on a western Baghdad street on January 7 after attempting to meet with a prominent Sunni Arab politician.Her interpreter was shot dead.Journalists at Qatar-based Al-Jazeera said Carroll’s kidnappers identified themselves as members of a previously unknown armed group calling itself the “Brigades of Vengeance” and threatened to kill her.”The kidnappers have set the US government a deadline of 72 hours to free Iraqi women prisoners,” it said.Carroll’s family issued a statement pleading for her release and described her as “an innocent journalist”.”We respectfully ask that you please show her mercy and allow her to return home to her mother, sister and family,” said the statement.”She has been welcomed into the homes of many Iraqis and shown every courtesy.From that experience, she understands the hardships and suffering that the Iraqi people face every day.”Carroll, 28, who has been in and out of Iraq since October 2003 and freelanced for the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor.She was the 31st media worker to have been kidnapped in Iraq since the start of the war in 2003, according to watchdog group Reporters without Borders.US forces hunting for Carroll last week raided a well known Sunni mosque in the west of the capital after a tipoff, triggering angry protests from Sunni Muslim clerics.A number of security guards were arrested and computers and records belonging to the mosque confiscated.- Nampa-AFPThere has been a new spate of kidnappings in Iraq in recent weeks, with more than 40 foreigners are currently being held by insurgents or reported missing.A number of hostages, including Westerners, have been killed.Arabic television station Al-Jazeera late on Tuesday broadcast a brief video showing Carroll, her first appearance since she was seized on a western Baghdad street on January 7 after attempting to meet with a prominent Sunni Arab politician.Her interpreter was shot dead.Journalists at Qatar-based Al-Jazeera said Carroll’s kidnappers identified themselves as members of a previously unknown armed group calling itself the “Brigades of Vengeance” and threatened to kill her.”The kidnappers have set the US government a deadline of 72 hours to free Iraqi women prisoners,” it said.Carroll’s family issued a statement pleading for her release and described her as “an innocent journalist”.”We respectfully ask that you please show her mercy and allow her to return home to her mother, sister and family,” said the statement.”She has been welcomed into the homes of many Iraqis and shown every courtesy.From that experience, she understands the hardships and suffering that the Iraqi people face every day.”Carroll, 28, who has been in and out of Iraq since October 2003 and freelanced for the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor.She was the 31st media worker to have been kidnapped in Iraq since the start of the war in 2003, according to watchdog group Reporters without Borders.US forces hunting for Carroll last week raided a well known Sunni mosque in the west of the capital after a tipoff, triggering angry protests from Sunni Muslim clerics.A number of security guards were arrested and computers and records belonging to the mosque confiscated.- Nampa-AFP