Jill Carroll's captors weren't a run-of-the-mill kidnap-for-ransom criminal group. Nor were they just any band of insurgents. They were close allies of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Her chief captor claimed that after he abducted Ms. Carroll, he was elevated to the leadership of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq (MSC) – the umbrella council over about half a dozen major Sunni insurgent groups – including Al Qaeda in Iraq. While both Iraqi and US officials agree that her former captor is probably the official head of MSC, they disagree over how much power he wields.

More intriguing, say some experts, is that her experience reveals a strong ideological affinity between Iraqi and foreign insurgents that contradicts news reports of a growing schism between them.

The MSC was a little-known group at the time of Carroll's Jan. 7 kidnapping. But on Jan. 15, the group was formally announced as a front for Iraqi and foreign mujahideen, or holy warriors, in an Internet statement. Abdullah Rashid al- Baghdadi – a pseudonym – was named its emir, or leader.

Shortly after that statement, Carroll was approached by her lead captor who used the nom de guerre "Abu Nour," around her. Soft-spoken and stern, he never slept in the same place as his captive. He told her that he was a scholar of Islamic law and hailed from a wealthy Baghdad family. He wore Western business suits and a spicy cologne. He went to some lengths to prevent her from getting a good look at his face, sometimes covering it with a scarf and at other times simply sitting behind her.

Usually reserved, on this day in late January he was excited and happy, almost puffed up with pride, says Carroll. But what he had to say, as he sat just outside a doorway, frightened her: In his halting but effective English, he brought up Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

"He's a very good man, and he's my friend.... If you met him, you would like him so much," Abu Nour said. "But he's not the head of the mujahideen anymore.... We have something new."

He told her that most of the major jihad groups in Iraq had gotten together to form the MSC, a name Carroll had never heard before. (Indeed, the name had been used publicly in Iraq only once before, in a May 2005 propaganda video claiming the kidnapping of Australian contractor Douglas Wood. He was rescued six weeks later.) Abu Nour told her the intent was not to sideline Al Qaeda, but to put Iraqis in the titular lead of the fight against the US presence and the Shiite-led government.

"We decided we need to have an Iraqi face on this,'' he told Carroll. "The Americans are always saying that foreigners are leading the mujahideen, so people need to see an Iraqi face, and he [Mr. Zarqawi] agreed. So we decided to make Abdullah Rashid the head of this group."

Then Abu Nour dropped his bombshell. "I am Abdullah Rashid! When the editor of your newspaper finds out you spoke to Abdullah Rashid, he will be very happy."

Senior Iraqi police investigators agree that Abu Nour or Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi is the head of the MSC, and that he was once a senior officer in Saddam Hussein's air force. The Iraqi investigators refused to reveal their identities for security reasons.

A senior US military intelligence officer in Iraq says that while Carroll's kidnappers were involved with the MSC, Abdullah Rashid was exaggerating his importance to Carroll, perhaps to confuse investigators. This US officer also says, contradicting Iraqi investigators, that the group is operationally minor. The MSC "are a few guys and a dog and an Internet connection,'' he says. "Al Qaeda really drives the agenda."

Either way, the evidence indicates that Carroll spent almost three months with some of Al Qaeda's closest Iraqi allies.

The MSC proclaimed its ties to, and admiration for, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Zarqawi, before and after his killing by US forces in early June. "May God accept you, Abu Musab, and join you with the martyrs and the righteous,'' reads a June 9 MSC statement signed by Abdullah Rashid.

The group has emerged as the largest disseminator of propaganda for the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq. On some days, it posts dozens of Internet releases claiming attacks on US forces, and frequently follows these with videos of exploding US Humvees.

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