Iraqi search for kidnapped Christian Science Monitor reporter
-11/01/06
No public demands or claims of responsibility have been made by the abductors of a journalist kidnapped in Baghdad three days ago - who has now been identified as Jill Carroll, a 28-year-old freelancer working for the
Christian Science Monitor [0].
Ms Carroll's driver escaped unharmed from the scene of the hijacking. But a translator accompanying her, a 32-year old Christian Iraqi, was killed. Ms Carroll speaks Arabic, but was being assisted by Allan Enwiyah.
The driver said that the whole incident happened in an instant, lasting no more than a few seconds.
Iraqi authorities, with assistance from security officials, are seeking clues as to who might have carried out the abduction.
Monitor editor [1] Richard Bergenheim said: "We are urgently seeking information about Ms Carroll and are pursuing every avenue to secure her release."
Alastair Leithead, who works for the BBC [2] in Baghdad, says that the Adel district where Ms Carroll was travelling when she was seized is one of the city's most dangerous areas. Three Iraqi television journalists were killed there recently.
The freelancer has been reporting from the Middle East for Jordanian, Italian and other international media organisations over the past three years, said a Christian Science Monitor [3] spokesperson.
She and the translator were on their way to meet Adnan al Dulaimi, the head of the Iraqi Consensus Front [4], a Sunni coalition, when the ambush took place.
Ms Carroll is the 31st journalist to be seized in Iraq since the war in 2003, comments Reporters Without Borders [5], a French NGO.
The reporter had been working in Iraq for two years and is regarded as informed, careful and reliable.
She had been contributing articles regularly to the Christian Science Monitor [6] since February 2005, according to the paper's world news editor David Clark Scott.
"She has proved an insightful, resourceful, and courageous reporter," he said yesterday. "But Jill is not the kind of person to take undue risks."
Among the other captives still held hostage in Iraq are the four Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) activists seized outside a mosque on 26 November - Tom Fox, Norman Kember, Jim Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden.
The Christian Science Monitor is a respected independent newspaper published from Monday to Friday each week. Founded in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, it has reporters in eleven countries.
Although published by the Christian Science church (a religious movement not recognised by the historic Christian denominations), the Monitor [7] is a public news service rather than a church paper.
[Also on Ekklesia: Regular updates on FaithInSociety [8] weblog; News: Muslim envoy may return to Iraq for CPT four [9] 08/01/06; Release of French engineer brings Iraq hostage hope [10] 08/01/06; Journalist kidnapped in Iraq as friends pray for peace workers [11] 07/01/06; Anti-war MP takes politics and religion into Big Brother [12] 06/01/06; Birmingham inter-faith vigil for Kember and Iraq peace workers [13] 06/01/06; Norman Kember's wife in new TV appeal to Iraq captors [14] 06/01/06; New London vigil for Norman Kember announced [15] 04/01/06; Christian Peacemaker Teams seek meeting with President Bush [16] 04/01/06 (includes complete index of related articles on this site); Speculation continues over kidnapped peace workers in Iraq [17] 04/01/06; Middle East Christians and Muslims renew plea for Iraq captives [18] 01/01/06; Baptists urge support for Norman Kember [19] 31/12/05; Vigils go on for Christian Peacemaker Teams hostages in Iraq [20] 30/12/05. Key book: Patricia Gates-Brown (ed.), Getting in the Way: Stories from Christian Peacemaker Teams [21], Herald Press; All faiths candlelit vigil in London for Norman Kember [22]; Kember supporters urged to keep hope alive [23]; Christians and Muslims show continued support for Norman Kember [24]; Former Guantanamo Bay detainees call for release of Christian peace workers [25]]
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