Kidnapped reporter freed in Iraq

American journalist Jill Carroll was freed unharmed in Iraq yesterday, almost three months after being kidnapped in Baghdad.

"I'm just happy to be free. I just want to be with my family," Ms Carroll, wearing a headscarf, told Baghdad Television, adding she had had no warning she was being freed.

"Never hit me. Never even threatened to hit me," she told the channel, which is run by the Iraqi Islamic Party, the Sunni Arab organisation at whose offices she showed up unannounced.

Her sudden release grabbed the media focus and buoyed politicians desperate for some good news, but thousands of Iraqis and 200 foreign hostages have been abducted and violence dogs the country amid fears of a descent into civil war.

At Iraq's main oil refinery, at Baiji north of Baghdad, gunmen ambushed and killed eight workers, the latest in a series of strikes at the main source of Iraq's domestic fuel.

Kidnappings and sectarian violence have spiralled since a major Shi'ite mosque was bombed in the city of Samarra on February 22 and US officials warn the Shi'ite-Sunni bloodshed is now killing more people than the Sunni revolt against occupation.

US Army estimates released yesterday show more than 1,300 murders and execution-style killings since Samarra, compared with 173 people killed by car bombs.

Dozens of often mutilated corpses are being found on the streets of the capital every day.

The threat of civil war has added urgency to glacial negotiations to form a new government, still dragging on months after December parliamentary elections.

Washington is publicly pressing political leaders to forge a government of national unity, bringing together Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds to ease tensions and avert civil war.

But sticking points include a Sunni demand for a security veto in any new government and Sunni and Kurd opposition to interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shi'ite, taking on the job permanently due to his failure to stem the bloodshed.

"(We) still have reservations on the nomination of Jaafari as a prime minister after his failing in running the country during this period of deteriorating security," Adnan al-Dulaimi, who heads the largest Sunni bloc in parliament, told Reuters.

Mr Jaafari said he thought a government could be formed in April. But it was not clear on what he based the forecast.

Dulaimi estimated more than 1,700 Sunnis have been killed in the sectarian violence since February 22, but does not explain how he arrives at his figure.

The Ministry of Displacement and Migration says at least 33,000 Sunnis and Shi'ites have fled their homes, many forced out by insurgents or Islamic militants bent on purging whole areas of either Sunnis or Shi'ites.

Briefing reporters on Ms Carroll's release, US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said no US personnel had been involved and that no kidnappers had been caught.

Ms Carroll's kidnappers had demanded the release of Iraqi women prisoners held by US forces. Soon after her kidnapping, five of nine women the US said it had in detention were freed, but Mr Khalilzad said that was unrelated to her case.

"She is in a safe place, she is with friends," he told reporters in Baghdad's Green Zone diplomatic and government compound, where Iraqi officials say Ms Carroll is staying.