Carroll's Mom Thanks 'Monitor,' Reporters Without Borders

By: Mark Fitzgerald Mary Beth Carroll, mother of just-released hostage reporter Jill Carroll, said Thursday she owes "a debt of gratitude I could never repay to the staff and editors of The Christian Science Monitor both here and around the world for all their work on her behalf."

In a statement read by her cousin Peter Alonzi outside her Evanston, Ill., home, Mary Beth Carroll also singled out the Paris-based free press group Reporters Without Borders (RSF for its initials in French) for thanks. Jill Carroll, 28, was released in front of the Baghdad offices of a political party Thursday. The freelancer writing for the Monitor had been kidnapped Jan. 8 in an attack in which her translator was shot dead.

Mary Beth Carroll was "in seclusion" and would not give interviews until she was reunited with her daughter, Alonzi said. Jill Carroll's father, Jim, told The Associated Press at his Chapel Hill, N.C. home that the family wanted "especially thank The Christian Science Monitor who did so much work to keep her image alive in Iraq."

In a statement on its Web site, RSF said news of the release was a "huge relief."

RSF praised the "exemplary" courage and determination of her family, and thanked the press in general. "We thank all those throughout the world, particularly the major Arabic media, who campaigned for the release of this young journalist," the organization said.

But it added, "Our campaign will not be over until the three Iraqi reporters, Rim Zeid, Marwan Khazaal and Ali Abdullah Fayad have been released in their turn."

Zeid and Khazaal, journalists for the TV network al-Sumariya, were kidnapped in Baghdad Feb. 1. Fayad, a journalist for the al-Safir newspaper, was abducted in Kut, southeast of the capital, on March 21.

RSF noted that so far at least 86 journalists and media assistants have been killed, and 39 have been kidnapped in Iraq since the conflict began in March 2003.

"This targeted brutality is repugnant and threatens the existence of independent news and information in Iraq," RSF said.