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U.S. Ambassador: Carroll Said to Be Alive
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi officials believe kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll is alive and they are working toward her release, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq said Monday.
In a broadcast interview, Zalmay Khalilzad said, "Yes, I did talk to the minister of interior late last night, and he said that based on the information that he has, that she is alive and that they have information with regard to where she might be held.
"We are doing all that we can to help bring about a release and will persist with that. But the minister announced today that he's optimistic about her release."
Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr made similar statements in a broadcast interview Monday on ABC.
The latest in a series of apparent deadlines set by kidnappers holding Carroll passed Sunday with no word on her fate.
She last appeared on a video shown on Alrai Television in Kuwait on February 9. In that video she said she was doing well, but she urged the United States to meet her captors' demands quickly.
Her abductors, a group calling itself Brigades of Vengeance, have said they will kill Carroll if the United States does not release all women it has detained in Iraq.
The 28-year-old freelance writer on assignment for The Christian Science Monitor was kidnapped January 7 in western Baghdad. Her Iraqi interpreter was killed, but her Iraqi driver escaped.
Muslim leaders have joined her family, friends and colleagues in calling for her release.
Lawyer: Hussein ends hunger strike
After 11 days, Saddam Hussein has ended his hunger strike to protest conditions at his war crimes trial, his attorney said Monday from Amman, Jordan.
With the trial scheduled to resume Tuesday, Hussein's lawyer, Khalil Dulaimi, said the defense team has requested a delay because of the recent sectarian violence.
Dulaimi said the judges on the tribunal also are weighing some demands the defense wants met before ending its boycott. He was not specific about the demands.
Mortar attacks kill 4; curfew lifted
Curfews in Iraq were lifted Monday, a day after at least 25 people were killed in a string of attacks that rocked the country despite calls from Iraqi and U.S. leaders to end sectarian bloodshed.
The curfews were aimed at preventing mass gatherings that could be targeted for attacks.
As Monday began, traffic returned to the streets in Baghdad and its suburbs.
Hours later, a mortar attack hit a gas station and a high school for girls in the northwestern neighborhood of Shulla, killing four people, including two women, and wounding 17 others, Iraqi police said.
Sunday's deadliest attack came in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, where 15 people were killed and 45 others wounded when six mortar rounds landed in a residential area.
More than 200 people have been killed in violence since Wednesday, when insurgents bombed Samarra's Al-Askariya Mosque, a Shiite shrine also known as the Golden Mosque. The mosque is considered one of the holiest of Shiite sites.
Many of the attacks have pitted Shiites and Sunnis against one another.
U.S. troops killed
Three U.S. troops were killed Sunday in Iraq's capital.
Two soldiers died when a roadside bomb detonated in western Baghdad, the coalition press office said.
Another soldier was killed by small-arms fire in central Baghdad, the military said.
The military also announced that a U.S. soldier with Task Force Band of Brothers died Friday from non-combat related injuries at Forward Operating Base McKenzie, north of Baghdad.
Since the start of the war, 2,291 U.S. troops have died in Iraq.
Other developments
Gunmen killed two brothers in western Baquba late Monday morning, an official with Diyala Joint Coordination Center said. Also Monday, gunmen killed two men and wounded two adults and three children at a car maintenance shop, a JCC official said.
Despite the violence, Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said the country is not descending into civil war. He blamed Jordanian-born terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq group for instigating the violence. But he said, "The Iraqi people ... have shown al Qaeda in Iraq and the outside world that they will never be driven to the civil war."
Iraq's leaders still have time to reach "a genuine national compact" that will defuse the seething sectarian tensions, according to a study to be released Monday by the International Crisis Group, an influential nongovernmental group.
For more information, visit http://www.cnn.com.
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