Carroll 'praised' insurgents

2006-03-31 08:16

Dubai - Freed US hostage Jill Carroll praised Iraq's insurgents and predicted their victory in an interview conducted by her captors before they released her on Thursday, according to a video posted on the internet.

The footage, which could not be independently verified, appeared to have been filmed shortly before the freelance journalist was released on Thursday nearly three months after being kidnapped in Baghdad.

"Did you think the American army or the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) would save you at any time," a muffled male voice asked Carroll in accented English.

"Sometimes I thought maybe that they might come, they might find me, they might find a way to know where I am and come get me," she answered, dressed in the same baggy dress and headscarf she appeared in after her release.

Carroll, 28, who worked mainly for the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor, was dropped on Thursday at the door of the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters in Baghdad's western Amiriyah district after being abducted on January 7.

"Why did not they save you," asked the man.

"I think the mujahedeen are very smart and even with all the technology and all the people that the American army has here, they still are better at knowing how to live and work here, more clever," she said.

"Does this mean something to you," asked the man.

"It makes very clear that the mujahedeen are the ones that will win in the end," said Carroll.

At the end of the 8.5-minute tape, the same man read out a statement in Arabic.

"The mujahedeen in the land of the two rivers announce the liberation of the journalist Jill Carroll... after the US forces and the CIA failed to find her making their ineptitude obvious to the whole world," he said.

"We liberate this journalist today after the American government met some of our demands by releasing some of our women prisoners."

- AFP