Negotiators, clerics work to free American hostage

? U.S. negotiators were working around the clock to secure the release of hostage American journalist Jill Carroll as a deadline set by militants threatening to kill her passed Friday with no word on her fate.

Muslims from Baghdad to Paris urged the militants to free the 28-year-old woman and end Iraq’s wave of kidnappings. More than 240 foreigners have been taken captive and at least 39 killed since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Carroll was seized Jan. 7 in a rough Baghdad neighborhood by gunmen who killed her translator. The Sunni Arab politician she had gone to interview urged her release and demanded that U.S. forces stop detaining Iraqi women.

“This act has hurt me and makes me sad because the journalist was trying to meet me when she was kidnapped,” Adnan al-Dulaimi said Friday. “I call upon the kidnappers to immediately release this reporter who came here to cover Iraq’s news and defend our rights.”

A videotape sent by Carroll’s kidnappers, a group calling itself “The Revenge Brigade,” was aired Tuesday by the Arab TV station Al-Jazeera, which said her captors threatened to kill her unless U.S. forces freed all Iraqi women in military custody within 72 hours.

No hour was specified, and there was no indication if any prisoners had been released. But the U.S. military confirmed Friday that it has nine Iraqi women in its detention facilities on suspicion of terror-related activities.

“We don’t comment on whether Iraqi female or male detainees are in the process of being released,” U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said. “Of course we understand the cultural sensitivities in detaining females and pay particular attention to assessing their files.”

Iraq’s deputy justice minister, Busho Ibrahim Ali, visited the women Friday and said six of them would be freed next week.

“There’s no link between the government’s request for their release and the kidnapped American journalist,” said Ali, who saw the detainees at a U.S. facility near Baghdad International Airport.

Carroll grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., and graduated from the University of Massachusetts. She worked as a reporting assistant for The Wall Street Journal before moving to Jordan and launching her freelance career in 2002, learning Arabic along the way. Most recently, she was working for The Christian Science Monitor.

A U.S. official said little has been heard from the kidnappers since two roughly 20-second portions of the videotape were aired Tuesday and Thursday. They showed Carroll sitting in a house, surrounded by three armed, masked men.