Carroll's Dad Thanks Those Who Helped - Yahoo! News (travel news)

..."We're thrilled," she told The Associated Press in a quick phone call.

Jill Carroll, 28, went to the Middle East in 2002 after being laid off from a newspaper job, fulfilling a long-held dream of covering a war.

On Jan.

7, while going to interview Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi, Carroll was kidnapped in Baghdad's western Adil neighborhood.

Her translator was killed in the attack about 300 yards from al-Dulaimi's office.

Her captors, calling themselves the Revenge Brigades, demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq by Feb.

26 and said Carroll would be killed if that didn't happen.

The date came and went with no word about her welfare.

On Thursday, she was finally free.

Carroll was handed over to the Iraqi Islamic Party office in Amiriya, western Baghdad, by an unknown group and then turned over to the Americans.

She was believed to be in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

"I'm just happy to be free," she said.

"I w...