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| 5/24 |
| 2006/3/30-31 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:42552 Activity:nil 93%like:42546 |
3/30 http://tinyurl.com/p3fpg (news.yahoo.com) Carroll freed in Iraq!!! HAPPY NEWS finally. \_ I bet the Freepers think this is bad news. \_ Pretty much: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1606219/posts My favorite is "does she look Arab to you?" \_ Considering the Italian journalist was later found with some of the ransom money, some degree of doubt is appropriate. Here is the real victim of this story: Remembering Allan: a tribute to Jill Carroll's interpreter http://csmonitor.com/2006/0306/p01s03-woiq.html?s=t5 |
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| tinyurl.com/p3fpg -> news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060330/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_carroll_released AP Few Details Emerge on Carroll's Release By MARIAM FAM, Associated Press Writer 23 minutes ago BAGHDAD, Iraq - Wearing a green Islamic head scarf, American reporter Jill Carroll walked into an Iraqi political party office Thursday, set free nearly three months after being kidnapped in an ambush that killed her translator. "I was treated well, but I don't know why I was kidnapped," Carroll said on Baghdad television, only weeks after she appeared weeping in a video put out by kidnappers who had threatened to kill her. Her family thanked "the generous people around the world who worked officially or unofficially" to gain her freedom. Her father, Jim, said he was asleep in his North Carolina home when the phone rang at about 6 am "Hi, Dad. I'm released," the voice on the other end said, he told CNN. No details were given about the circumstances surrounding her release. The US ambassador said there was no ransom paid by the American embassy, but his remarks left open the question of whether "arrangements" were made by others. President Bush said, "I'm just really grateful she's released, and I want to thank those who worked hard to release her and we're glad she's alive." Her translator was killed in the attack about 300 yards from al-Dulaimi's office. The previously unknown Revenge Brigades claimed responsibility. The group threatened twice in videotapes to kill Carroll. They never even threatened to hit me," she said Thursday, wearing a gray Arabic robe. Carroll said she was kept in a furnished room with a window and a shower, but she did not know where she was. It was difficult because I didn't know what would happen to me," she said. She said she was allowed to watch TV once and read a newspaper once. Asked about the circumstances of her release, she said, "I don't know what happened. Falah al-Mohammedawi said Carroll was released near an office of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni political organization, in western Baghdad. The party said in a statement that Carroll walked in at 12:15 pm carrying a letter written in Arabic asking the party to help her. Carroll then was transferred to party headquarters, given gifts that included a Quran and was met by fellow journalists and American officials before leaving at about 2:30 pm, the statement said. US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad met with Carroll and said she was in good spirits and anxious to go home. The Italian news agency ANSA said Carroll underwent a medical checkup at the American hospital in the Green Zone. Khalilzad also said no kidnappers were "yet" in custody, and no one in the US mission was involved in paying a ransom. "No US person entered into any arrangements with anyone. By 'US person' I mean the United States mission," Khalilzad said. The Monitor said it was not aware of any negotiations involving money for Carroll's release. And to our knowledge, no one was paid by anyone," said David Cook, the Monitor's Washington bureau chief. Carroll's family said it would focus on helping her recover. Jim Carroll told the AP at his house in Chapel Hill, NC, he was waiting to learn more about his daughter's plans before making travel arrangements. In a statement issued by the Monitor, the family said, "Our hearts are full ... We would like to thank all of the generous people around the world who worked officially or unofficially -- especially those who took personal risk -- to gain Jill's release." During Carroll's months in captivity, she had appeared in three videos broadcast on Arab television, pleading for her life. On Wednesday, her twin sister, Katie, made an appeal on the Al-Arabiya network, calling her an "innocent woman." "I've been living a nightmare, worrying if she is hurt or ill," she said. Her twin sister, Katie, issued a plea for her release on Al-Arabiya television late Wednesday. In the American Journalism Review last year, Carroll wrote that she moved to Jordan in late 2002 "to learn as much about the region as possible before the fighting began." "There was bound to be plenty of parachute journalism once the war started, and I didn't want to be a part of that," she wrote. Carroll has had work from Iraq published in the Monitor, AJR, US News & World Report, ANSA and other publications. She has been interviewed often on National Public Radio. ANSA's editor in chief, Pierluigi Magnaschi, wrote Carroll an e-mail, telling her: "Welcome back, Jill. We worried about you and rooted for you for a long time, with all our strength." Magnaschi invited her to Rome saying, "You deserve this stupendous Rome that is blossoming into spring. Carroll is the fourth Western hostage to be freed in eight days. On March 23, US and British soldiers, acting on intelligence gained from a detainee, freed Briton Norman Kember, 74, and Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, from a house west of Baghdad. The three belonged to the Christian Peacemakers Teams group and had been kidnapped with an American colleague, Tom Fox, 54, on Nov. Fox was killed and his body was dumped in western Baghdad on March 9 Reporters Without Borders said at 86 journalists and media assistants have been killed in Iraq and 39 others have been kidnapped since the war started in 2003. American reporter Jill Carroll speaks during an interview with APTV after her release, Thursday, March 30, 2006, in Baghdad, Iraq. Carroll was set free Thursday, police said, nearly three months after she was kidnapped in a bloody ambush that killed her translator. She was later turned over to the Americans and was believed to be in the heavily fortified Green Zone, he said. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. |
| www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1606219/posts Arabs only 600 years behind us A US reporter held hostage in Iraq for more than two months has been freed. Jill Carroll, who works for the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor, was abducted by unknown gunmen in west Baghdad on 7 January. She told Iraqi television she had been treated well and was looking forward to being reunited with her family. The US ambassador to Iraq said no ransom was paid by the US embassy. Ms Carroll's release came a week after three other Westerners were freed. just came to me and said: 'We're letting you go' Jill Carroll "I'm just happy to be free. I just want to be with my family," Ms Carroll said in a brief interview in English shown on Baghdad television. "I don't know why I was kidnapped," said the 28-year-old journalist, who was wearing a headscarf. Ms Carroll said she had been only allowed to move between her room and the bathroom. I was kept in a safe place with nice furniture, plenty of food. She appears in good health and great spirits Zalmay Khalilzad US ambassador to Iraq Ms Carroll's family said in a statement that they were elated. The editor of the Christian Science Monitor, Richard Bergenheim, said all the newspaper's staff were "thrilled" at the news. US President George Bush responded to the news of Ms Carroll's release with the words: "Thank God." He added: "I'm really grateful she was released and thank those who worked hard for her release." Embassy informed Recalling the circumstances of her release, Ms Carroll said her captors "just came to me and said: 'We're letting you go'". Iraqi police said Ms Carroll had been dropped off at the offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party in western Baghdad and was in good health. The fate of about 90 foreign hostages remains unknown US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters he was informed about the release at about 1300 local time and went to meet her. "She is safe, she is free and she appears in good health and great spirits," Mr Khalilzad said after the meeting. He added that none of the hostage takers had been captured and that no ransom was paid by the US embassy. Mr Bergenheim said it appeared that US troops played no part in Ms Carroll's release. An Iraqi government source quoted by Reuters news agency said that Ms Carroll was being cared for in Baghdad's heavily guarded government compound, the Green Zone. Demands Ms Carroll was kidnapped in Baghdad's western Adil district while going to interview the senior Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi. Her captors, who called themselves the Revenge Brigades, had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq. They had threatened to execute her if their demands were not met by a 26 February deadline. At least 230 foreigners, and thousands of Iraqis, have been taken hostage in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. About 50 of the foreigners have been killed by their captors and the whereabouts of another 90, including six Americans, remain unknown. View Replies To: Arabs only 600 years behind us Her interpreter was killed. While she claims that she was kept in "Club Jihad" type conditions her companion was murdered. View Replies To: Vn_survivor_67-68 Jill unofficially converted to Islam and changed her name to "Zaineb" which means "Daughter of Mohammed". She cannot go public with it because she writes for the Christian Science Monitor--her only venue to getting her US troop bashing articles out. From what I have read, there is no evidence whatever that she ever converted to Islam. She did use the name you gave while in Iraq, when pretending not to be an American. Essentially, people are condemning her without adequate information. I suggest we all wait to hear what she has to say once she gets back home. View Replies Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works. |
| csmonitor.com/2006/0306/p01s03-woiq.html?s=t5 Iraq in Transition from the March 06, 2006 edition (Photograph) FAMILY MEAL: Allan Enwiyah embraced his parents in Baghdad in an undated photo. Allan began work as an interpreter after closing his music store because of death threats. HOWARD LAFRANCHI Remembering Allan: a tribute to Jill Carroll's interpreter By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON - He had kept a famous music store open in Baghdad until last summer, when conditions made purveying Western CDs too dangerous. Still needing to support his young and growing family, Allan Enwiya turned full time to interpreting for American reporters, a job that he had dabbled in since 2004. And it was while doing that job with journalist Jill Carroll on a Saturday morning in January that Allan became a victim of an abduction on a Baghdad street, where he was shot and killed. Permission to reprint/republish Allan was one of 82 journalists and media assistants who have been killed in Iraq since the beginning of the war, according to the international organization Reporters Without Borders. Of that number, 25 were media assistants killed, like Allan, while doing their job. But Allan's story is representative of why Iraqis are willing to take such risks by working with foreigners. For some it's the chance to break into journalism, to be a part of telling their country's history. But for the majority - and Allan was one of these - it is a means for turning a prized talent, facility with English, into a job and a way to support a family in a difficult economy. With Allan's death, another small chip of the cosmopolitan and partially Westernized mosaic that was prewar Baghdad was lost. He had just about everything from Abba to Marilyn Manson." Yet as much as he loved music and as comfortable as he felt with Americans and other Westerners, what motivated the young Iraqi Christian with a degree in electrical engineering was his family: his parents, to whom he was an only son, but especially to his wife, a 5-year-old daughter, Mary Ann, and a toddler son, Martin. Omar Fekeiki, an Iraqi who had known Allan since the late 1990s, was a college student when he first walked into Allan's music shop. "Allan needed to provide for his family, and what he was good at was the English language," he says. Now a special correspondent in Baghdad for The Washington Post, Mr Fekeiki says, "For some of us, it's the chance to be a journalist that brings us in, but Allan wasn't like that. Like the doctors and pharmacists and engineers you see doing this job," he adds, "he used his skill to have a job and make a living." A correspondent's perspective I worked with Allan while on a stint in Iraq in December, just before the national elections. During those weeks, I came to know an easygoing young man who took his job seriously, but who liked to gossip, always good-naturedly, about Iraqi politicians or international stars. He dressed nattily - crisp jeans and a sport shirt or T-shirt that looked more Western than Iraqi. And while he was interested enough in the politics of what then was an Iraq deep in campaign mode, he saved his passion for his young family. I had known other interpreters during my stints in Iraq who seemed to use the job to escape their families and those duties, but clearly for Allan, the job - as interesting as it was to him - was a means to an end. Covering Saddam Hussein's trial (Photograph) PORTRAIT: Allan Enwiyah with his wife, Fairuz, children Martin and Mary Ann, and his parents. HOWARD LAFRANCHI "His family was his top priority, and his kids were his life," says Carolyne Hanna, a cousin now living in Chicago who played with a young Allan until her family left Iraq in 1982. "Sure, he did it for the money, but it was also something he liked that he was good at." The Allan I knew less well was the young man who had run the music shop, Allan Melody, in Baghdad's once-chic A'arasat neighborhood. That Allan had turned to family in the States to send him the latest music so he could be up to date. "He'd send me a list, and I'd send him 20 CDs at a time," says Ms Hanna. Allan shuttered the shop after receiving death threats and having an unexploded hand grenade tossed through the front window. Allan was the first to recognize that he had not been formally trained as a interpreter, and that as a result he was prone to find himself over his head in some interviews. Fully at ease in man-on-the-street interviews (at least the ones that were in fact off the street and behind shop doors, away from peering eyes), Allan was less in command in formal interviews with officials using precise language, and he knew it. He chuckled heartily for hours after a highly intellectual official in one ministry, endowed with enough English to know he was not happy with Allan's translation of his references to 19th-century philosophers, stopped the interview. "He's saying you need a new interpreter," Allan stage-whispered to me, grinning as the official fumed in the background. But on another occasion he picked up on the tension between an outspoken official and a ministry minder who in veiled terms warned the official not to dwell on certain issues - in this case sectarian tensions in schools - with the American reporter. Allan let their discussion go on without seeming to take note of it or translate it, but later in the car he filled me in on the heated words and, to his thinking, their significance. Allan also wanted to learn on the job, so he could be a better interpreter. When he found out he was going to fill the Monitor's slot in a pool of interpreters for the Saddam Hussein trial, he was worried. Part of it was a concern that he would be recognized by the wrong people. That fear was allayed when he learned that he would not be seen or have his face broadcast on TV. But he also worried that he would stumble over legal terms he just didn't know. So we spent hours over a couple of days before his translating stint, watching the trial and making a list of key words: defendant, plaintiff, prosecution, witness, evidence, and so on. The evening of his day in court, Allan called me, euphoric. "It was frightening and exciting at the same time, it was amazing," he said, breathless. "Do you know what it's like for an Iraqi to be in the room with the man who controlled our lives for so many years? Allan seemed happiest, and proudest, the day he took me to have lunch at his house, where he lived with his own family, his parents, a sister, and a cousin. His mother, originally from Basra, prepared masgouf, a large river fish, with a fabulous Basran sauce of olives and spices. After lunch, we sipped sweet tea and Raymond Enwiya, Allan's father, told me of his own good years and decline as a Baghdad businessman. Allan juggled Martin on a knee while keeping Mary Ann busy with his other arm. He made a video, speaking as he filmed to provide the audio for the kids' antics. Today Mr Enwiya, his wife and daughter, and Allan's wife and children, have left the country. They await word on their request for visas to go to the United States. Their lives have changed drastically, but they watch the videos Allan made, even the ones he isn't in, just to hear his voice. How to help Donations may be sent to: The Allan Enwiya Fund c/o The Christian Science Monitor One Norway Street Boston, MA 02115 "I won't let his children forget him," Allan's father says. Back in Baghdad, others won't forget Allan so quickly either, especially those who cherished the music shop. Like the blogger, who, remembering how much Allan loved Pink Floyd, closed a cybertribute with these Pink Floyd lyrics: Did you see the frightened ones? Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter When the promise of a brave new world Unfurled beneath the clear blue sky? |
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