Joy, homecoming plans for reporter

Just after noon yesterday, American journalist Jill Carroll walked unannounced into the office of a moderate Sunni political party in western Baghdad, carrying a letter in Arabic that identified her and asked for help.

Suddenly, Carroll was free after 82 days in captivity, an ordeal that family and friends had feared she might not survive. Instead, she calmly described her captivity as safe, humane, and nearly comfortable.

''I was kept in a very good, small, safe place," Carroll, a freelance writer for The Christian Science Monitor in Boston since 2004, told Baghdad Television just after her release. ''They never hit me or even threatened to hit me."

Carroll, 28, said she did not know who her captors were or why she was kidnapped. ''I was treated well," she said. ''They gave me clothing. Plenty of food. I was allowed to take showers, go to the bathroom when I wanted."

She was kidnapped Jan. 7 in a bloody ambush that killed her translator, Allan Enwiyah, as they traveled to an interview with a Sunni political leader. Her composed and healthy appearance yesterday contrasted dramatically with a videotape released by her captors Jan. 30, in which Carroll appeared terrified and was weeping.

''I don't know what happened," Carroll said, her head covered by a Muslim scarf. ''They just came to me early this morning and said, 'OK, we are letting you go now.' "

In a video posted on the Internet later yesterday, the group that had claimed responsibility for Carroll's kidnapping, the Revenge Brigades, declared it had freed her because the United States released some female Iraqi prisoners, as the group had demanded, Agence France-Presse reported.

US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who spoke with Carroll, said the US Embassy did not pay a ransom for her release. ''No US person entered into any arrangements with anyone. By 'US person,' I mean the United States mission," Khalilzad said.

US military officials and the Monitor also said they had not negotiated for her freedom.

The news of Carroll's release brought joy to her family, the staff at the Monitor, and students and faculty at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she had been news editor of The Daily Collegian.

Her father, Jim Carroll of Chapel Hill, N.C., said he awoke to a telephone call at 6 a.m. and heard the words: ''Hi, Dad. This is Jill. I'm released."

''It was quite a wake-up call, to say the least," her father told reporters outside his home. ''She's apparently in good health and mentally strong, and we're all very pleased about that."

After Jill Carroll's release in a violent Baghdad neighborhood, officials from the Iraqi Islamic Party transferred her to the group's headquarters. There, she was given gifts, including a Koran, and met reporters, before US authorities took her about 2:30 p.m. to the heavily fortified Green Zone.

Jim Carroll said arrangements were being made for her return to the United States, but that he did not have any specifics. ''We're feeling ecstatic. It's been a long haul, and we're done with it now," he said.

Jill Carroll's kidnappers had said in their first of three videotapes, released Jan. 17, that the United States had 72 hours to release all female prisoners in Iraq or she would be killed. That condition was not met, although in subsequent weeks, US officials announced the release of several Iraqi women but said it was not related to the demands of Carroll's captors.

Before being freed, Carroll had not been seen or heard in public since a videotape released Feb. 9, in which she said ominously of her captors' demands: ''There is a very short time. Please do it fast."

She was released a day after her twin sister, Katie Carroll, appeared on an Arab television station, following an interview in Washington, to ask for any information about Jill.

''I've been living a nightmare, worrying if she is hurt or ill," Katie Carroll said in a statement she read on Al Arabiya. ''There is no one I hold closer to my heart than my sister, and I am deeply worried wondering how she is being treated."

Katie Carroll pleaded ''for any new sign that Jill is well." In closing, she said, ''I also hope that those with Jill have come to know her -- that they recognize what a wonderful person she is and realize that they can show the world that they are merciful to an innocent woman by returning her safely home to us."

Jill Carroll traveled to the Middle East in 2002 to immerse herself as a journalist in a region she saw as being pivotal to imminent world events.

In a 2005 article in American Journalism Review, Carroll wrote that she moved to Jordan six months before the war ''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.

In addition to the Monitor and American Journalism Review, Jill Carroll's work from Iraq has been published in The Boston Globe, US News & World Report, and the Italian news agency ANSA, among other outlets.

In Boston, outside the Monitor's Back Bay headquarters, editor Richard Bergenheim praised the work that had been done to secure Carroll's release.

''Today's just a wonderful day of rejoicing," Bergenheim said. ''Jill's friends at the Monitor can't wait to see her, and there's no way to thank everyone, everyone in the press, everyone around the world, all government officials, all Iraqi people."

The Monitor released a statement from the Carroll family, which read in part: ''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."

In Amherst, in the offices of The Daily Collegian, assistant news editor Matt Belliveau called Carroll, a 1999 UMass graduate, ''an inspiration to us all." Belliveau said he covers the student government beat, which Jill Carroll once worked, and that her ''bulldog mentality" continues to influence his reporting.

In Mexico, President Bush said, ''Thank God," when told of her freedom. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveling in Berlin, also expressed relief. ''This is something that people have across the world worked for and prayed for, and I think we are all very pleased and happy to hear of her release," Rice said.

American Muslims also applauded her freedom. Representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., had traveled to Iraq in January to appeal to her captors to free her, and had held vigils on her behalf.

Dawud Walid, head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said, ''We were ecstatic when we heard the news this morning. We are truly grateful to God that our prayers have been answered."

Many of Jill Carroll's family, friends, and colleagues asked that other journalists who have been kidnapped or killed not be forgotten, and that the plight of dozens of Iraqi civilians who are being abducted in ongoing sectarian violence not be overlooked.

''Often, more than 30 Iraqis a day are kidnapped, and the world doesn't hear their voices or the voices of their family," said Bergenheim, the Monitor editor. ''They deserve attention and their freedom no less than Jill."

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 39 reporters have been kidnapped in Iraq since 2004. Of that number, six have been killed, 31 released, and two continue to be held.

Dr. Michael Grodin, a psychiatrist and professor at the Boston University School of Public Health who has worked with Holocaust survivors and torture victims, said Jill Carroll faces a long, difficult recovery.

''She's in shock, I'm sure," Grodin said. ''She's never going to forget what happened to her."