Female prisoners released in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraq’s minister of industry narrowly escaped an assassination attempt Thursday, while the release of five female prisoners by U.S. authorities raised hopes that kidnapped American reporter Jill Carroll might soon be set free.

Also Thursday, the U.S. military reported the deaths of a U.S. soldier and a Marine, and Army Gen. George W. Casey acknowledged to reporters in Diwaniyah that U.S. forces were “stretched.” He was responding to questions concerning reports of an unreleased Pentagon study that found the military is overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Iraqi minister, Usama Abdulaziz Najafi, was in a motor convoy on a main highway about 65 miles north of Baghdad when a roadside bomb exploded. The blast engulfed one of the cars in flames, killing three bodyguards and injuring one. The minister was unhurt.

The Iraqi insurgency has targeted high government officials as well as mid- and low-level bureaucrats for assassination in its attempts to weaken Iraq’s emerging democratic government.

Carroll, who was working for the Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped Jan. 7 in Baghdad. On Jan. 17, her captors issued a videotape showing Carroll and threatened to kill her unless all female prisoners held by U.S. forces were released by Jan. 20. There has been no word since about the 28-year-old reporter’s fate or whereabouts.

The five female prisoners freed Thursday were among 424 released by U.S. authorities. At a news briefing, Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said the move was part of a “normal process and not as a result of demands by terrorists and criminals.” The total number of Iraqis in U.S. military jails is estimated at 14,000, which still includes four women.

Iraqi officials were quoted in local media as saying they were hopeful the release would persuade Carroll’s abductors to set her free. In a telephone interview, Carroll’s Christian Science Monitor colleague, Washington bureau chief David Cook, was guarded in his reaction.

“We are aware of the release and watching carefully for positive developments,” he said.

Casey spoke to reporters during a trip to witness the military turnover of two provinces in south-central Iraq to the 8th Division of the Iraqi national army. He said that, although the U.S. military in Iraq was under stress, he thought the mission could be accomplished as staffed and that he would order withdrawals only as Iraqi forces became capable of taking over operations.

Details of the two U.S. fatalities were scarce, and the identities were withheld pending notification of the families. One was a Marine who was killed Jan. 24 by small-arms fire east of Fallujah. He was assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward).

The other fatality was described only as an Army soldier with the Multinational Division Baghdad who was killed Wednesday by a roadside bomb near Baghdad.