Insurgents will win, says hostage

by Jay Deshmukh in Baghdad
April 01, 2006

US AUTHORITIES in Iraq guarded freed hostage Jill Carroll overnight after insurgents released her from nearly three months of captivity and published a video showing her praising them.

Insurgents, meanwhile, carried out a series of attacks killing eight people, five of them from one Shiite family.

US officials declined to say when the 28-year-old freelance journalist would go home to the United States.

Video footage posted on the Internet late Thursday showed Ms Carroll in an interview with her kidnappers before her release in which she praised Iraq's insurgents and even predicted their victory.

The circumstances under which she spoke were unclear.

"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," Ms Carroll said in response to a question.

Asked what she meant, Ms Carroll, who was snatched from a Baghdad street on January 7, answered: "It makes very clear that the mujahedeen are the ones that will win in the end."
The video showed her dressed in the same baggy clothes she was seen wearing after her release.
Ms Carroll also said she felt guilty being set free while many women remained imprisoned at Baghdad's US-run Abu Ghraib prison.

"It shows the difference between the mujahedeen and the Americans; it shows the mujahedeen are good people fighting an honourable fight while the Americans are here as an occupying force treating the people in a very bad way."

On Thursday afternoon, Ms Carroll, who worked mainly for the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor, was dropped off near the office of the Iraqi Islamic Party.

US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters that "no US person had made arrangement with kidnappers" for her release. He added that none of the kidnappers was in custody yet.

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