Jill Carroll: I Was Not Harmed

Christian Science Monitor Reporter Speaks Out After 82 Days As Hostage

(CBS/AP)  Carroll's father Jim, standing on the porch of his home in Chapel Hill, N.C., said he was asleep when the phone rang at about 6 a.m. "Hi, Dad. This is Jill. I'm released," the voice on the other end said.

"Obviously we are thrilled and relieved that she has been released," he said.

CBS correspondent Cynthia Bowers reports that Carroll's mother celebrated her daughter's release in private, but had her cousin read a statement.

"My cousin, Mary Beth Carroll, Jill's mother, and all of our family are delighted, thrilled, ecstatic that Jill has been released," said Peter Alonzi.

Carroll’s aunt told Bowers that she was relived. "As thrilling as it is, I hope we never have to go through something like this again. … There were so many scary points throughout."

Bowers reports that one day earlier, Carroll’s twin sister, Katie, appeared on Arab TV. "I hope someone listening to me now has information that will help Jill," she said.

On Thursday, the sisters also spoke by phone.

"She called me because she remembered my number. I was dreaming that this would be the way I'd find out — that she'd call me in the middle of the night like this," Katie said, according to the Monitor. "She sounded great."

President Bush said he rejoiced at the news. "I'm just really grateful she was released," he said. He thanked those "who worked so hard for her release. I'm glad she's alive."

With Carroll's release, there are no more foreign journalists held hostage in Iraq. However, two Iraqi journalists kidnapped on Feb. 1 are still being held.

Carroll was abducted 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 300 yards from al-Dulaimi's office.

About 12:15 p.m. Thursday in west Baghdad's Amiriyah neighborhood, Carroll was dropped near a branch office of the Iraqi Islamic Party. Carroll walked into the office, carrying a letter in Arabic from her kidnappers instructing the party to help her.

She "introduced herself as Jill Carroll ... and gave us a written letter in Arabic that asked the Islamic Party help her," Alaa Maki, a party member, told reporters.

Carroll was then taken by an armored car to the party's headquarters, where she was interviewed by the party-owned Baghdad Television and given a copy of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, which appeared to be covered in gold leaf.

Her comments Thursday were a marked contrast to videotapes released by the kidnappers to Arab television stations.

Carroll wept in a Jan. 30 tape on Al-Jazeera television, and the voiceover of the video said she appealed for authorities to free all women prisoners in Iraq to help win her release.

Ten days later, in a video dated Feb. 2 and aired by a private Kuwaiti TV channel, Carroll spoke in a strong voice, saying she had sent a letter to prove she was alive and now was appearing on television for the same purpose.

"I am here. I am fine. Please just do whatever they want, give them whatever they want as quickly as possible. There is a very short time. Please do it fast. That's all."

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.

Carroll is the fourth Western hostage to be freed in eight days. On March 23, U.S. and British soldiers freed Briton Norman Kember, 74, and Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, from a house west of Baghdad. But a fourth member of the Christian Peacemakers Teams group held hostage, American Tom Fox, was killed earlier.

Thirty-nine journalists have been kidnapped in Iraq since April 2004, when insurgents began targeting the press, said Ann Cooper, the executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Six of them were killed.

"As journalists are being kidnapped, detained and killed, it becomes exceedingly hard for them to do their job in Iraq,” Cooper said, “and it is we, the general public, who lose from it."