A Jill Carroll captor killed, says US military
Monitor reporter doesn't recognize the photo of the man the military says is information minister for Al Qaeda in Iraq.
By Dan Murphy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the May 4, 2007 edition
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Cairo - The US military said it killed a senior figure in Al Qaeda's Iraq operation, one who also played a role in the murder of the American Tom Fox, the murder of former Monitor interpreter Alan Enwiya, and the kidnapping of Monitor reporter Jill Carroll.
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told reporters in Baghdad that Muharib Abdul-Latif al-Jubouri, who he identified as the information minister for Al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed by US-led forces on Tuesday near Taji Air Base.
The US military says it doesn't know the full extent of Mr. Jubouri's involvement in Ms. Carroll's kidnapping. Carroll says she doesn't recognize the photo released by the military of Jubouri.
Over the past year the US military has detained a number of figures believed to have been involved in the Carroll kidnapping in January 2006 and in the November 2005 kidnapping of Mr. Fox and three other members of the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT), a pacifist group operating at that time in Baghdad.
Four men charged in the CPT kidnappings are scheduled to go on trial in Iraq this year. A US military spokesman said the information obtained about Jubouri came from "detainees" and "intelligence sources."
What role did Jubouri play in Carroll's kidnapping?
General Caldwell's description of the role of the dead man – particularly that "we know he is responsible for propaganda and ransom videos for Jill Carroll" – would imply that Jubouri was Jill's chief captor, a man known to her as "Abu Nour" and as "Abdullah Rashid."
Another senior captor that Carroll knew as Abu Rasha, a burly man who played a major role in the logistics of her captivity, also partially fits Caldwell's statement that Jubouri was "responsible for the transportation and movement of Jill Carroll from her various hiding places."
But Carroll was held by a number of men, and the photo of Jubouri doesn't appear to be either Abu Rasha or Abu Nour. She says the photo might be of a kidnapper whom she had taken to be a low-status guard, but couldn't be sure.
Carroll says that Abu Nour – a slight man with an icy temperament – had played a major role in scripting and directing the propaganda videos she was forced to make while in captivity. There was no doubt in her mind that he was the most powerful of the captors she had contact with, though her captor's conversations led her to believe that there were others involved in her kidnapping and Mr. Enwiya's murder.
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