(Christian Science Monitor)  Some nights, at the end of the last conference call with Boston, the pair would listen to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" performed by Jeff Buckley. It filled the apartment, and lifted their spirits, with a song that Murphy knew to be one of Jill's favorites.

Eventually, reluctantly, Peterson took a two-week break with his family in Istanbul, Turkey.

In mid-February, Jim notified the Monitor that he had opened a new channel with someone claiming to be an intermediary for the kidnappers. Hopes rose again.

An Arabic interpreter was brought into his home. But under FBI advice, Jim refused to tell Team Jill in Boston or the Baghdad Boys any of the details. Even more frustrating to Murphy and Peterson, Jill's father told them to shut down any other tracks they were pursuing, including talks with Jordanian officials who had just said they would try to help. The Monitor reporters didn't want to be working at cross-purposes to Jim, so they reluctantly sat on their hands.

But after the bombing of the Askariya Shrine, fighting surged between Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents, prompting more curfews. Jim's Iraqi contact stopped answering his phone. Days dragged into a week, two weeks.

Another dry hole.

Discouraged, Jim sent word that Murphy and Peterson could resume their efforts in Iraq. By now, Murphy needed a break and left for Cairo.

- P.G.

***

On the day in late February that an exhausted Abu Rasha had told me that Shiites were now the mujahideen's top target, he'd told me something else, something chilling.

"We killed an Al Arabiya journalist," he said, his face drawn, his eyes hard. "She said the mujahideen are bad."

It was unclear if he meant that he himself had participated in the killing or if it had been done by men from the larger group of mujahideen.
They'd frequently assured me that I wasn't going to be killed. But clearly there were times when their rules for jihad allowed them to kill women, and to kill women journalists.

As I learned after I was released, the well-known Al Arabiya newswoman Atwar Bahjat and two colleagues were abducted and killed by gunmen while they were interviewing Iraqis near the bombed Samarra shrine.

I bounced from house to house over the next few weeks - mostly between the clubhouse and a new house west of Fallujah - and the guards grew incredibly agitated. They would bitterly complain to me about being stuck with guard duty. Abu Hassan - the guard with the suicide vest - would sleep and eat little. He was always on edge. He would fiddle with his 9mm pistol obsessively and leap to his feet to peer out a window at the first sound of a helicopter or barking dog.

He spent his time on the phone, checking in with others for the latest news on their campaign to kill Shiites. When anyone came to the house, he pumped them for stories about their "work," as they all called it.


In his state of agitation and boredom, he began raising suspicions about the Shiite neighbors. They didn't know I was there. They didn't appear to know that the men at this house were mujahideen. They'd drop off fresh bread or yogurt, or stop to chat outside, just as Iraqis had done for generations.

They did not yet recognize that those days of amity were over.

Coming up in Part IX: The Muj Brothers

Cast Of Captors

Abu Nour - "Ink Eyes." Leader of Jill Carroll's kidnappers. Said he was Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi, leader of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq. The council included Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Abu Rasha - Nom de guerre of the No. 2 kidnapper. Boss of Carroll's guards. During her first night of captivity, she was kept at his house in Baghdad. "Very tired" after Samarra bombing.

Abu Ahmed - A close lieutenant of Abu Nour and appeared to be a member of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq. An Islamic scholar who had recently read an Arabic translation of a Henry Kissinger biography.

Um Ali - Wife of Abu Ali. Guarded Carroll at all times in the first month of captivity.

Abu Hassan - Nom de guerre of No. 1 guard of Carroll in second and third months. He wore an explosive vest.

By Jill Carroll and Peter Grier
© 2006 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.