Captive reporter appears in video

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Jill Carroll, the American reporter kidnapped in Iraq last month, appeared on a new videotape aired on an Arab-language television channel Thursday night, urging her supporters to do whatever is necessary to obtain her release.

Looking more healthy and composed than in her previous appearance, aired Jan. 30, the 28-year-old Christian Science Monitor freelancer captured by an unknown armed group in Baghdad on Jan. 7 asked an unnamed third party to comply quickly with the kidnappers’ demands.

“I am here,” said Carroll, who first arrived in Iraq shortly after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and stayed through the insurgency.

“I am fine,” she said. “Please just do whatever they want, give them whatever they want as quickly as possible.” She punctuated her 22-second message, which she said was recorded Feb. 2, with a note of urgency: “There is a very short time. Please do it fast. That’s all.”

The tape, with references to ongoing negotiations, suggested that Carroll has not fallen into the hands of the most brutal category of kidnappers in Iraq, the extremist Islamic fundamentalists such as the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who have previously beheaded Western hostages for political ends.

Still, it remains unclear what additional demands the kidnappers are making to secure Carroll’s release. In a tape that aired Jan. 30 Carroll called for the release of all female prisoners being held in detention by U.S. and Iraqi forces.

U.S. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch told reporters Thursday that American and Iraqi officials plan to release about 450 prisoners from detention centers sometime next week. He said he did not know whether any were women.

Thursday’s video was broadcast on privately owned al-Rai, a satellite channel known more for entertainment than news.