Kidnapped American reporter Carroll freed in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Mar 30 (Reuters) American journalist Jill Carroll was freed in Iraq today, nearly three months after being kidnapped in Baghdad.

''I'm just happy to be free. I just want to be with my family,'' Carroll, wearing a headscarf, told Baghdad Television in English.

''They treated me well. They didn't hit me or threaten me,'' she said in comments translated into Arabic by the channel, run by the Iraqi Islamic Party at whose offices party officials had said she was released hours earlier.

She had a comfortable room and could wash easily but could not move beyond the immediate confines of her accommodation.

Asked who her captors were and why they seized her off a Baghdad street on January 7, killing her interpreter, she said in translated remarks: ''I don't know. You should ask the mujahideen.'' She did not know if she was held in Baghdad.

Iraqi politicians and officials said the correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor was delivered some hours earlier to an office of the Sunni Arab-run Islamic Party.

She was in good health and is now in the Green Zone government and diplomatic compound, an Iraqi Interior Ministry source said. The US embassy and military declined comment.

The release of the 28-year-old correspondent, whose Iraqi interpreter was killed during her abduction, came a week after three Christian peace activists were rescued by special forces after four months in captivity.

At that time, military officials in Baghdad said the hunt for Carroll and other foreign hostages was continuing.

ISLAMIC PARTY An official at the Iraqi Islamic Party said Carroll was delivered to its office in Amriya district, a Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold in Baghdad.

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