Hurrrrrrray!!!!
 

Jill Carroll a journalist for the Christian Science Monitor who was kidnapped on 7 January 2006 in Iraq was released by her kidnappers last night. Although there was numerous death threats,she states that she was never abused by her captors.

Oh man...Great news!

lakritze,

Yes! :) Good news indeed!

Awesome!

She is a very very very very very lucky girl.

That is good news.

Two Canadians & a Brit were freed last week, too. It wasn't the hostages releasing them, it was the tactical forces finding them. Was it a different scenario for Ms. Carroll?

Yes, it was, Steph. She was released by her captors. They took her by car and dropped her off somewhere. No military involved as far as we've been told.

Thanks for the update, SS.

Sadly, an American was killed a couple of months ago but the forces managed to save the remaining three.

I'm thinking it's uncommon to see Iraqis freeing hostages?

Yes, it is uncommon. But apparently Ms. Carroll has successfully blended in to the Iraqi culture and many of the Muslim clerics, as well as all the obvious others such as her family, and various Western governments and religious leaders were all speaking out on her behalf. It seems to have worked.

"Stockholm Syndrome"(sp?)My Opinion! Irish

The fact that she has assimilated into the Iraqi culture in order to better do her job as a reporter has nothing at all to do with the "Stockholm Syndrome."

Your opinion-my opinion! Irish

It's great - I wonder though why she refused the free ride home from our military folks

From today's NY Times:
 

An article on The Christian Science Monitor Web site on Friday said a video Ms. Carroll made with her captors shortly before her release had been produced under duress and did not represent her beliefs.

In the video, distributed on the Internet, Ms. Carroll, wearing a pale head scarf and apparently knowing she would be released, calmly answered questions asked in English by one of her captors. She denounced the "lies" told by the American government and predicted that the insurgents would defeat the Americans in Iraq.

The video had raised questions about whether Ms. Carroll was suffering from Stockholm syndrome, in which hostages become sympathetic to their captors, or had made the statements either out of fear or as a practical matter, to facilitate her release.

The Monitor article states that Ms. Carroll's captors approached her the night before her release, saying "they had one final demand as the price of her freedom: She would have to make a video praising her captors and attacking the United States." According to her father, Jim Carroll, who was interviewed for the Monitor article, "she felt compelled to make statements strongly critical of President Bush and his policy in Iraq."

Mr. Carroll is quoted as saying the captors "obviously wanted maximum propaganda value in the U.S. After listening to them for three months she already knew exactly what they wanted her to say, so she gave it to them with appropriate acting to make it look convincing."