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8:16 p.m.
BBC reports that,
Iraq's ministry of justice has told the BBC that six of the eight women being held by coalition forces in Iraq are to be released early.The six will be freed because there is insufficient evidence to charge them, a justice ministry spokesman said.
...The demand that all Iraqi female prisoners held by coalition forces should be released was made in a video of Ms Carroll which aired on Arab TV channel al-Jazeera on Tuesday....
Related: From Reuters today, U.S. confirms holding 8 women prisoners in Iraq
3:47 p.m. Wednesday: I have been in meetings most of the day, which ices the blog, but here's the latest on the story that's leading.
Hostage video ignites wide call to free Carroll: Wednesday, the umbrella group for a number of leading Sunni clerics condemned the Jan. 7 kidnapping
The Christian Science Monitor, for whom Jilll Carroll was reporting when she was abducted, reports,
Those calling upon her abductors in Iraq to show mercy included senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, and some of Iraq's most influential Sunni Arab leaders, including Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Iraqi Accordance Front....
A separate page publishes some of these statements.
Updated 11:27 p.m. BBC broadcasts a few seconds of the video; Scotsman.com has more stills.
4:44 p.m. Tuesday
Al Jazeera reports today on the first public word of the American journalist kidnapped Jan. 7:
The abductors of US journalist Jill Carroll have threatened to kill her if the United States does not free Iraqi women prisoners within 72 hours.Aljazeera aired a brief video on Tuesday showing Carroll speaking to the camera, without broadcasting her voice.
Aljazeera reaffirmed its rejection of all forms of violence against journalists and demanded Caroll's immediate release....
Al-Jazeera TV would not tell The Associated Press how it received the tape, but issued its own statement calling for Carroll's release. An Al-Jazeera producer said no militant group's name was attached to the message that it was sent to the station with the tape on Tuesday....The State Department responded to the videotape on Al-Jazeera with a statement saying U.S. officials were doing everything possible to win Carroll's freedom.
