Jill Carroll - Abduction

Abduction

On January 7, 2006, Carroll, along with an interpreter and driver, traveled to the Adel district of Baghdad to interview Adnan al-Dulaimi, a Sunni politician and leader of the Iraqi People's Conference. After discovering that al-Dulaimi was not at his office, they left and soon after were ambushed by masked gunmen. The driver, Adnan Abbas, managed to escape, but Carroll was kidnapped and her interpreter, Alan Enwiyah, 32, was shot dead and his body abandoned nearby by the kidnappers during the abduction. Carroll's driver, quoted in a story posted on the Monitor's website, said gunmen jumped in front of the car, pulled him from it, and drove off with their two captives all within 15 seconds.

Enwiyah, also known as Alan John Ghazi, was formerly a well-known music retailer in Baghdad.

According to the watchdog group Reporters without Borders, Carroll was the 31st foreign journalist to be kidnapped in Iraq since the Iraq War began in March 2003.

Among the many kidnappings in Iraq, Carroll's kidnapping evoked one of the most widespread outcries.

"We are urgently seeking information about Ms. Carroll and are pursuing every avenue to secure her release," Monitor editor Richard Bergenheim said in January.

"I, her father and her sister are appealing directly to her captors to release this young woman who has worked so hard to show the sufferings of Iraqis to the world," Mary Beth Carroll told CNN's American Morning on January 19, 2006.

In the efforts to locate and rescue Carroll, U.S. forces initially raided a mosque in the west of the capital after a tip that "activities related to the kidnapping were being carried out inside," triggering angry protests from Sunni Muslim citizens.