After three months as a hostage, AP reporter Jill Carroll has been released to American forces in the Green Zone, the news service reports (via Stop the ACLU):

Kidnapped U.S. reporter Jill Carroll has been released after nearly three months in captivity, Iraq police and the leader of the Islamic Party said Thursday. She was reported in good condition.

Carroll, a freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped on Jan. 7, in Baghdad's western Adil neighborhood while going to interview Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi. Her translator was killed in the attack about 300 yards from al-Dulaimi's office.

"She was released this morning, she's talked to her father and she's fine," said David Cook, Washington bureau chief of The Christian Science Monitor.

Police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said was handed over to the Iraqi Islamic Party office in Amiriya, western Baghdad, by an unknown group. She was later turned over to the Americans and was believed to be in the heavily fortified Green Zone, he said.

Carroll's kidnappers had demanded the release of all female prisoners from US custody as a condition of her release. Five eventually were released by US forces in late January as part of an overall release of 424 detainees, a move that Centcom denied having any connection to the Carroll kidnapping, but it only resulted in a repeat of the overall demand in any event. The deadline for the ransom came and went over a month ago, and no one had heard anything significant about her status since then.

The AP does not report when Carroll will return to the US, or whether she intends to do so immediately or not. Undoubtedly, we will await her own report on her captivity, treatment, and observations about the nature of the enemy that kept her in bondage for so long.

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