American reporter Jill Carroll, who was kidnapped three months ago in a bloody ambush that killed her translator and later appeared in videotapes pleading for help, was released yesterday. Her editor said she was "fine."
"She was released this morning, she's talked to her father and she's fine," said David Cook, an editor for the Christian Science Monitor in Washington.
Police Lieutenant Colonel Falah al-Mohammedawi said Carroll was released near an office of the Iraqi Islamic Party in western Baghdad.
"She is healthy and we handed her over to the Americans," said Nasir al-Ani, a party member.
The party is the main Sunni political organization.
Carroll, a freelance reporter for the Monitor, was kidnapped on Jan. 7, in Baghdad's western Adil neighborhood while going to interview Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi. Her translator was killed in the attack about 300m from al-Dulaimi's office.
Her captors, calling themselves the Revenge Brigades, had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq by Feb. 26 and said Carroll would be killed if that didn't happen. The date came and went with no word about her.
She was last seen in a videotape broadcast Feb. 9 by the private Kuwaiti TV station Al-Rai.
On Wednesday Carroll's twin, Katie, pleaded for her sister's release on the Al-Arabiya network.
"I've been living a nightmare, worrying if she is hurt or ill," she said in a statement.
Meanwhile, assailants in speeding cars gunned down a police commando as he was leaving his house in south Baghdad yesterday, and drive-by shooters killed a lawyer as she got out of a taxi in the southern city of Basra, police said. A dozen Iraqis were wounded in bombings and other attacks in the capital. The US military also reported two deaths yesterday.
In other developments, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Wednesday vigorously asserted his right to stay in office and warned the US against interfering in the country's political process.
Al-Jaafari also defended his recent political alliance with Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, now the prime minister's most powerful backer, saying in an interview that al-Sadr and his militia, now thousands strong, are a fact of life in Iraq and need to be accepted into mainstream politics.
Al-Jaafari said he would work to fold the country's myriad militias into the official security forces and ensure that recruits and top security ministers abandoned their ethnic or sectarian loyalties.
Al-Jaafari is at the center of the deadlock in the talks over forming a new government.
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New kind of violence now terrorizing Iraqis
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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