The 28-year-old journalist, who was kidnapped in Iraq on 7 January, had last appeared in a video aired on the Arabic-language television station, Al Jazeera, on 30 January, in which she tearfully appealed to fellow Americans to press for the release of Iraqi women held by U.S.-led forces.

Carroll, a freelance journalist working for the “Christian Science Monitor,” was abducted in the Iraqi capital Baghdad by militants who also killed her Iraqi interpreter.

Al Jazeera also aired a video showing Carroll on 17 January and said her abductors threatened to kill her if their demand was not met but did not name the group that kidnapped her.