Rory Carroll due back home today

Freed Irish journalist Rory Carroll, who was kidnapped in Iraq, is due to be reunited with his family in Dublin today.

Gunmen snatched the Guardian journalist from a Baghdad suburb on Wednesday, but he was released unharmed on Thursday night after 36 hours in captivity.

He is due to fly to Dublin to see his parents Joe and Kathy and sister Karina at the family's home in Blackrock, south Dublin.

His father, a retired Irish Times journalist, confirmed the family were expecting him to arrive in Dublin this afternoon.

"It's been a long week," his father said.

The journalist was watching the trial of deposed leader Saddam Hussein with a Shiite family shortly before he was abducted.

He had spent several hours with the family in the Sadr City district and was snatched as he left the house.

There were fears Mr Carroll could meet the same fate as previous Irish passport holders who were taken hostage and killed by Iraqi rebels.

The Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern led round-the-clock political and diplomatic contacts with officials in Iraq, Iran, Britain, France and Italy.

But after two nights held in a cell, one of Mr Carroll's kidnappers received a mobile phone call and the award-winning journalist was released.

He was taken to a rendezvous point with Iraqi police and then transported to the offices in the fortified Green Zone of Iraqi deputy prime minister Ahmed Chalabi, where he telephoned his father in Dublin to say he was free and unharmed.

His family described his release as a miracle, and said they were over the moon at the news he had been freed.