Sunni Leader in Iraq Appeals for Release of American Journalist

BAGHDAD —  One of Iraq’s most influential Sunni Arab leaders called Friday for U.S. journalist Jill Carroll to be freed, and her father made an appeal on Arabic television as her kidnappers’ deadline passed.

“Release this journalist who strived for Iraq, defended Iraqis and condemned the war in Iraq,” Adnan Dulaimi, head of the Iraqi Accordance Front, said at a news conference in Baghdad.

Carroll, 28, a freelance journalist on assignment for the Christian Science Monitor, had just left Dulaimi’s office Jan. 7 when she was abducted by gunmen.

“She came to meet me in person, and she didn’t find me. The kidnapping of this woman is an insult to me and to my work,” Dulaimi said. “I am making every effort to release Iraqi women detainees, and this kidnapping will obstruct my efforts.”

Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya television stations aired the appeal from Carroll’s father: “I want to speak directly to the kidnappers of my daughter Jill, who could be fathers like me,” Jim Carroll said in remarks dubbed into Arabic.

“My daughter has no influence, she doesn’t have the power to free anyone, she’s just a journalist and an innocent person.”