Kidnapped journalist in video appeal

Al-Jazeera aired a new video today of what appears to be kidnapped US journalist Jill Carroll wearing a veil and weeping.

The video had no sound, but the station said she appealed for the release of female Iraqi prisoners.

Ms Carroll is visibly crying in the video and wears a conservative Islamic veil as she speaks to the camera. The footage has a time signature with the date January 28.

The al-Jazeera newscaster said Ms Carroll appeals to the US military and the Iraqi interior ministry to release all women in their prisons and that this “would help in winning her release.”

Armed men abducted Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, on January 7 in Baghdad and threatened to kill her unless all Iraqi women prisoners were released.

The US military said last Thursday it would release five Iraqi women detainees, a move demanded by the kidnappers to spare her life.

But a US official said the release had nothing to do with the kidnappers’ demand.