Arrests In Kidnapping Of Jill Carroll
U.S. Marines have arrested four Iraqi men in connection with the kidnapping of U.S. journalist Jill Carroll, who was freed last March after 82 days in captivity, a U.S. spokesman said Wednesday.
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the four, who were not identified, were arrested in Anbar province west of Baghdad but he did not say when. Another U.S. official, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, said the arrests were made about a month ago.
Caldwell said Carroll, who works for the Christian Science Monitor, was held 7 miles west of Fallujah before she was freed March 30.
The 28-year-old journalist was kidnapped Jan. 7 in west Baghdad and her Iraqi interpreter was shot dead. She was released March 30 near a Sunni Arab political party office in Baghdad and returned to the United States on April 2.
The kidnappers, a formerly unknown group calling themselves the Revenge Brigade, had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq, saying Carroll would be killed otherwise. U.S. officials did release some female detainees but said the decision was unrelated to the demands.
Caldwell said a lieutenant from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment decided to investigation a house which he had read about in intelligence reports. He and his Marines entered the house and detained the owner.
"After questioning that suspect, Marines identified additional locations where Jill Caroll was believed to have been held," Caldwell said.
Caldwell said Marines from the 1st Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, went to a second location and arrested one person. Three others were arrested at yet another place north of Abu Ghraib in a raid by the U.S. Army 4th Infantry Division and two hostages were freed.
"U.S. and Iraqi authorities are currently discussing prosecutorial options and will make the determination shortly," he said.
The Christian Science Monitor said it was aware of the announcement in Baghdad and expressed gratitude for U.S. efforts to win her release.
"Like reporters everywhere, we are reassured to hear that several of those who held Jill have been apprehended," editor Richard Bergenheim said. "The daily threat of kidnapping in Iraq remains acute for all. Everything possible needs to be done to relieve Iraqis and others of this scourge."
In other developments:
Elsewhere in Iraq, a U.S. Army helicopter crashed in Iraq's western Anbar province, leaving two crew members missing and four injured, the U.S. military said Wednesday, as Iraqi and U.S. reinforcements move into the capital in a bid to stem sectarian violence that threatens civil war.
Four U.S. service members were injured when the UH60 Blackhawk helicopter crashed Tuesday with six people on board during a routine flight to survey the area, the U.S. command said in a statement Wednesday. The four injured troops were in stable condition, and it did not appear the crash was due to hostile fire, the U.S. said.
The ongoing violence in Baghdad has prompted U.S. commanders to reinforce troop strength in the city. A U.S. statement Tuesday said about 6,000 additional Iraqi troops were being sent to the Baghdad area, along with 3,500 soldiers of 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team and 2,000 troops from the U.S. 1st Armored Division, which has served as a reserve force since November.
"We must dramatically reduce the level of violence in Baghdad that is fueling sectarianism," said Maj. Gen. J.D. Thurman, commander of the coalition forces in Baghdad, where strife between Shiites and Sunnis runs the highest.
"Iraqi and U.S. forces will help the citizens of Baghdad by reducing the violence that has plagued this city since the Samarra bombing," Thurman said. "Iraqi and Multinational Division-Baghdad soldiers will not fail the Iraqi people."
Much of the violence has been blamed on sectarian militias that have stepped up a campaign of tit-for-tat killings since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in the northern city of Samarra.
Some of the reinforcements have already been seen patrolling a mostly Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad, scene of armed confrontations between Sunni and Shiite gunmen.
Many of the militias responsible for sectarian violence are linked to political parties that are part of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's national unity government, and they are reluctant to disband their armed wings unless others do the same.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said there were talks under way between various Sunni and Shiite groups to reach agreements and sign pledges to end sectarian fighting.
In other violence Wednesday, gunmen on two motorcycles assassinated Col. Qassim Abdel-Qadir, administrative head of an Iraqi army division in the southern city of Basra, said a police official who did not want to be named for security reasons.
Gunmen opened fire Wednesday on a group of men selling black market gasoline in western Baghdad, killing three of them and wounding one, police said.
Meanwhile, the Basra city council has decided not to cooperate with a committee sent by the prime minister to supervise an emergency plan for the city, according to councilman Aqil Talib. He said the council wanted to meet first with al-Maliki to determine the committee's role.
The decision shows the tension between the central government and the religious Shiite political leadership in Basra.
A policeman was killed and another wounded when they were trying to defuse a roadside bomb late Tuesday in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, police Capt. Laith Mohammed said.