Iraqi kidnappers of journalist Jill Carroll have set Feb. 26 deadline

The Iraqi kidnappers of American journalist Jill Carroll have set a Feb. 26 deadline for their demands to be met or they will kill her, the owner of Kuwait's Al Rai television said Friday.

Photo: Iraqi kidnappers of journalist Jill Carroll have set Feb. 26 deadline

Sources close to the kidnappers told the private TV channel earlier Friday that Carroll is "in a safe house owned by one of the kidnappers in downtown Baghdad with a group of women," Jassem Boudai told The Associated Press.

Carroll, who was kidnapped in Baghdad on Jan. 7, appeared in a video broadcast by Al Rai TV on Thursday in which she pleaded with the authorities to do whatever her abductors demanded, saying "there is a very short time."

"Please just do whatever they want, give them whatever they want as quickly as possible," she said, adding she was speaking on Feb. 2.

Her kidnappers, who call themselves the Revenge Brigades, have demanded the release of all Iraqi women held in U.S. military and Iraqi jails.

Boudai said Al Rai had received a message from "sources close to the kidnappers." He said the message was not conveyed in a video tape, but "another method." He declined to how it was received and whether the message was delivered to Al Rai's head office in Kuwait or its bureau in Baghdad where Thursday's video of Carroll was received.

"Sources close to the kidnappers informed Al Rai TV that the kidnappers have set a Feb. 26 deadline for their demands to be met or they will execute her according to Sharia," he said, referring to Islamic law.

He said the kidnappers have "more specific demands than releasing all women from jail," but he refused to disclose these demands, reports AP.

O.Ch.