Sunday, February 26, 2006

Zero hour for Jill Carroll

Apparently Coalition and Iraqi authorities are nearing the end of their rope regards leads in the Jill Carroll case. Today is the announced deadline. I guess the only 'good' thing might be it's the second such deadline the kidnappers have announced, the first one passing without consequence last month.

If she's still in the hands of her original captors that might be hopeful, since these people really want their female friends released from Abu Ghraib, and killing Ms. Carroll wouldn't help matters.

Of course, one might also assume the recent murder of one of Iraq's own female journalists could portend an ominous sign, suggesting little hestitation about killing an outside journalist.

The wild card might be the recent developments with the Golden Mosque sectarian chaos, which has pushed Anerica out of the spotlight. Yet, if this group busts another deadline it marginalizes their reputation and effectiveness.

Based on Ms. Carroll and the still missing Christian Peacemaker Team I have to admit being wrong to question whether we might deal with terrorists. It seems pretty clear we don't.

DEADLINE PASSES 2/26

And no sign of the missing reporter:
The Bush administration, Hamas, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the student newspaper at the University of Massachusetts have called for Carroll's release.
I didn't realize Hamas had taken a position. Seems kinda odd, considering their history and all.

NEWS 2/27

This is rather strange (as is nearly everything in Iraq nowadays) but the Iraqi government now thinks they know where she is:
In a broadcast interview, Zalmay Khalilzad said, "Yes, I did talk to the minister of interior late last night, and he said that based on the information that he has, that she is alive and that they have information with regard to where she might be held.
As the deadline approached yesterday they were frantically searching around the countryside with special ops teams. Now today, after the deadline has passed, they suddenly know where she is and no longer appear to be frantic. Uh, ok.

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