New video shows hostage journalist Jill Carroll

Pleas to American people
Thabit said Carroll also made pleas to her family, friends and all American people to pressure U.S. and Iraqi authorities to release all Iraqi women in detention.

Armed men abducted Carroll, a 28-year-old freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, on Jan. 7 in Baghdad.

On Jan. 17, Al-Jazeera aired a video released by the Revenge Brigades showing Carroll — her head bare and her long straight brown hair parted in the middle — and setting the Jan. 20 deadline.

That tape also was aired without sound. Al-Jazeera editors said their policy was to air such videos without audio because the voice was too upsetting for viewers and that the newscasters report the videos’ content.

The reporter’s parents have made repeated televised pleas for their daughter’s release. A Washington-based American Islamic advocacy group flew to Baghdad to drum up support for Carroll, and Islamic leaders from Iraq to Paris have called for her freedom.

Kidnapped in dangerous area
Carroll was abducted in one of Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhoods while being driven to meet a Sunni Arab politician, who failed to appear for the interview. Carroll’s translator was killed, but her driver escaped.

More than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis have been abducted in the anarchy that followed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Most foreign hostages have been released, but 54 are known to have been killed; more than 50 are still believed to be held.

Muslims from Iraq to France have called for the release of the journalist, who has reported on the suffering of Iraqis living under U.S. occupation amid a raging insurgency fanned mostly by Sunni Arab militants.

Carroll grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., and graduated from the University of Massachusetts. She worked as a reporting assistant for The Wall Street Journal before moving to Jordan and launching her freelance career in 2002, learning Arabic along the way. Most recently, she was working for The Christian Science Monitor.

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