TIME: How the Sunnis Will Use Jill Carroll's Release

[DeepModem Mom]

How the Sunnis Will Use Jill Carroll's Release
The hostage's release has already become a political tool in Iraq's ongoing sectarian strife

U.S. hostage Jill Carroll's unexpected release in Baghdad on Thursday was a welcome departure from the usual round of bloody bad news coming out of Iraq these days. But the circumstances of her release can hardly be divorced from the sectarian strife and political jockeying that is currently gripping the country. It didn't seem to be an accident, after all, that Carroll, looking hale and well, was turned over to the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni political group, whose secretary general, Tariq al-Hashimi, greeted the freelance journalist for the Christian Science Monitor with gifts, including a plaque with the party's logo on it, and a boxed copy of the Koran. "What you have received today from the Iraqi Islamic Party is exactly the teachings of the Koran," said Hashimi.

In the past, al-Hashimi's group has claimed to speak for the Sunni insurgency and it still has ties to myriad groups, so his photo op with Carroll, 28, was somewhat predictable. Sunni groups are in a political knife-fight with the dominant Shi'ite groups, who have claimed that only they can provide security and, as a result, must retain control of the ministries of Interior and Defense. Al-Hashimi's public presentation of Carroll, who was kidnapped Jan. 7 in western Baghdad, seemed to be his way of saying that while Sunnis may have taken her, they were also the ones who got her freed.

"I was treated very well," Carroll said in an immediate interview for the party's Baghdad television station. "They never hit me; they never even threatened to hit me. I'm just happy to be free, and I want to be with my family." Carroll's interpreter, Allan Enwiyah, was killed during her kidnapping.

In retrospect, the excruciatingly long periods of silence from Carroll's kidnappers may have been a positive sign. "It's been my experience that when you don't hear from them for a couple of months, they get released," said a former hostage negotiator who has worked in Iraq. He said missing the first deadline was a actually a good sign because "there does seem to be a trend that if you get held for a few months, either they get tired of holding you or work out a deal through the Iraqis." He mentioned that all of the journalists who had been held for long stretches of time—which includes Giuliana Sgrena, Florence Aubenas, George Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot— were released after an initial deadline had passed, and they had all been held by Sunni groups....

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1178564,00.html?cnn=yes

[spindrifter]

1. Rather than the Sunnis, I'm more

concerned with how the RW is going to swiftboat Ms. Carroll. I'm also concerned while there are still people who have not been released that a "former hostage negotiator who has worked in Iraq" is busy publicizing his/her conclusions about who survives. Seems to me once you show your hand to the opposition, they change the rules on you. Was this person a contractor working with one of the security firms such as BlackH2O or Aegis Iraq?

[DeepModem Mom]

2. All good points, spindrifter. nt