Reporter abducted in Iraq | csmonitor.com

Reporter abducted in Iraq | csmonitor.com: "Christian Science Monitor
BAGHDAD AND PARIS – Jill Carroll, a freelance journalist currently on assignment for The Christian Science Monitor, was abducted by unknown gunmen in Baghdad Saturday morning. Her Iraqi interpreter was killed during the kidnapping.

'I saw a group of people coming as if they had come from the sky,' recalled Ms. Carroll's driver, who survived the attack. 'One guy attracted my attention. He jumped in front of me screaming, 'Stop! Stop! Stop!' with his left hand up and a pistol in his right hand.'

One of the kidnappers pulled the driver from the car, jumped in, and drove away with several others huddled around Carroll and her interpreter, said the driver, who asked not to be identified. 'They didn't give me any time to even put the car in neutral,' he recounted.

The body of the interpreter, Allan Enwiyah, 32, was later found in the same neighborhood. He had been shot twice in the head, law enforcement officials said. There has been no word yet on Carroll's whereabouts.

The kidnapping occurred within 300 yards of the office of Adnan al-Dulaimi, a prominent Sunni politician, whom Carroll had been intending to interview at 10 a.m. Saturday local time, the driver said.

Mr. Dulaimi, however, turned out not to be at his office, and after 25 minutes, Carroll and her interpreter left. Their car was stopped as she drove away. 'It was very obvious this was by design,' said the driver. 'The whole operation took no more than a quarter of a minute. It was very highly organized. It was a setup, a perfect ambush.'"