Kidnapped journalist ‘won’t do anything foolish’

AMBITIOUS, determined and talented, Rory Carroll’s intrepid journalism has taken him across Europe, Africa and, inevitably, to Iraq’s volatile capital Baghdad.

The 33-year-old, named Northern Ireland’s young journalist of the year in 1997, is renowned as a diligent and level-headed reporter and was marked out early in his career as a likely high achiever.

He has worked from Baghdad for the last nine months, leaving his post as the Guardian’s South Africa correspondent after three years based in Johannesburg.