HABANIYAH, Iraq -- U.S. Marines who cracked the Jill Carroll kidnapping case say the American journalist was held for a time in a home within sight of a sprawling U.S. military base in western Iraq.
The Marines said the big break occurred May 19 when they searched a suspect's home near the Taqqadum logistics base seven weeks after Carroll's release. Jake Cusack, 24, a first lieutenant from Grand Rapids, linked the residence to intelligence reports in the case.
After one man was arrested near Taqqadum, other troops captured three more suspects and freed two kidnapped Iraqis in other hideouts where Carroll is thought to have been held, including a house that was booby-trapped and full of explosives, the U.S. command said Wednesday.
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, who announced the arrests Wednesday, said no decision had been made on what legal action to take against the four.
The Associated Press spoke with the Marines last month on condition the interviews not be published until the U.S. military reported the arrests.
Caldwell said the military decided to announce the detentions in part because Carroll had prepared a series of articles for the Christian Science Monitor detailing her abduction, detention and survival.
Carroll, a freelance journalist from Ann Arbor, was released March 30 in Baghdad after 82 days in captivity.
Her kidnappers, a previously unknown group calling itself the Revenge Brigade, had threatened to kill her if all female detainees in Iraq were not freed. U.S. officials released some women before her release but said the decision was unrelated to the demands.
Carroll's father, Jim, welcomed the arrests.
"We are thankful for all the efforts made to bring these men to justice and continue to hope for the safe release of Iraqi hostages and the American hostage Jeff Ake of Indiana," he said.
Ake, a businessman, was last seen in an April 13, 2005, video that showed him being held at gunpoint by at least three people, two days after he disappeared in Iraq.
Carroll said she was never hurt or threatened by her captives. She said she was given clothing and plenty of food.
