Reporter released in iraq

[-Tigger-]

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0...452194,00.html

JOURNALIST FREED IN IRAQ
Guardian journalist Rory Carroll has been freed unhurt in Iraq, reports say.

The 33-year-old, who was covering the Saddam Hussein trial, had been kidnapped at gunpoint.

The newspaper said Mr Carroll had been conducting an interview with a victim of Saddam's regime when gunmen confronted him outside the house where the conversation had taken place.

He was accompanied by two drivers and a translator, and was bundled into cars with one of the drivers, though the driver was later released.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger had described Mr Carroll as "a professional journalist - and he's a very good, straight journalist whose only concern is to report fairly and truthfully about the country".

Dublin-born Mr Carroll is the son of former Irish Times North American correspondent Joe Carroll, 70, and has been in Baghdad since January.

The Guardian said he volunteered for the job and his coverage had been critical of the coalition.

It said Mr Carroll had asked the Baghdad office of the Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr, to suggest a victim of the former regime for interview.

The office had fixed up the interview, and Mr Carroll had stayed at the house for three hours.

He was one of more than 220 foreigners kidnapped by militants in Iraq. Some 40 of them have been killed.

Meanwhile, three US soldiers have been killed and one injured after their combat patrol hit a roadside bomb in the town of Balad, 44 miles north of Baghdad.

The latest deaths brought to at least 1,979 the number of US military personnel killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003.

[Terry]

gd to hear hes been released but dam! didnt realise the us death toll had reached that kinda number!

[Hellfighter]

man he is very lucky