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Hizballah terrorist Mohammed Ali Hamadi, convicted in Germany of murdering US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem aboard a hijacked airplane but freed last December in a probable ransom exchange for German hostage Susanne Osthoff (Germany denies this, of course), has rejoined Hizballah. Imagine my surprise.

American reporter Jill Carroll has been released after a three-month hostage ordeal in Iraq and was with US officials inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone. -snip- Video interview A video posted on the internet, which could not be independently verified, showed Ms Carroll in an interview apparently conducted by her captors before they released her. "Did you think the American army or the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) would save you at any time," a muffled male voice asked Ms Carroll in accented English. "Sometimes I thought maybe that they might come, they might find me, they might find a way to...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Kidnapped U.S. journalist Jill Carroll has appeared in a new video on Al-Jazeera. In it, she's weeping and appealing for the release of women Iraqi prisoners. Last week, five Iraqi women were freed from U.S. custody. U.S. officials said the release had nothing to do with the demands by Carroll's kidnappers that the U.S. release Iraqi women. No sound was aired with the video. But Al-Jazeera said she appealed for the release of women Iraqi prisoners. She's visibly crying in the video, and is wearing a conservative Islamic veil.

Report says ransom money found on Osthoff Sat Jan 21, 2006 2:35 PM GMT BERLIN (Reuters) - Part of the ransom money alleged to have been paid by the German government to win the freedom of Iraq hostage Susanne Osthoff last month was found on Osthoff after her release, the German magazine Focus said on Saturday. Without citing its sources, Focus said officials at the German embassy in Baghdad had found several thousand U.S. dollars in the 43-year-old German archaeologist's clothes when she took a shower at the embassy shortly after being freed. The serial numbers on the bills matched...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Part of the ransom money alleged to have been paid by the German government to win the freedom of Iraq hostage Susanne Osthoff last month was found on Osthoff after her release, the German magazine Focus said on Saturday. Without citing its sources, Focus said officials at the German embassy in Baghdad had found several thousand U.S. dollars in the 43-year-old German archaeologist's clothes when she took a shower at the embassy shortly after being freed. The serial numbers on the bills matched those used by the government to pay off Osthoff's kidnappers, the magazine said.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Part of the ransom money alleged to have been paid by the German government to win the freedom of Iraq hostage Susanne Osthoff last month was found on Osthoff after her release, the German magazine Focus said on Saturday. Without citing its sources, Focus said officials at the German embassy in Baghdad had found several thousand U.S. dollars in the 43-year-old German archaeologist's clothes when she took a shower at the embassy shortly after being freed. The serial numbers on the bills matched those used by the government to pay off Osthoff's kidnappers, the magazine said. Efforts...

Stetham's murderer and Osthoff German sources, the UPI is reporting, say that Susanne Osthoff, the kidnapped archeologist who was released just before Christmas, was in fact a free lance spy for her country: These sources, admit that a ransom was paid for her release but deny that the release of Muhammad Ali Hamadi, the man who tortured and murdered Robert Dean Stetham was a coincidence, a decision not made by the Federal Republic. A convert to Islam and a fluent Arabic speaker, Osthoff had lived in Iraq for over a decade, and was at one time married to an Iraqi....

This is an actual and unmodified picture of former German hostage Susanne Osthoff as she appeared on German TV soon after being released from muslim hostage takers in Iraq. That's right this is a freed hostage. Many have speculated that ransom and/or prisoner swap was done to gain her release.

If former hostage Susanne Osthoff had been better advised, she probably would have opted against appearing on German television entirely covered in a black headscarf. The hijab, which left only a pair of slits for her eyes, made the freed hostage look like a disturbing cross between a Chechen Black Widow suicide bomber and a ninja. ...the presenter explained that Osthoff's choice of dress was suposedly intended to preserve her identity --a bizarre thought considering that Osthoff's face has been all over the front-pages since November and most people in Germany must be quite aware of what she looks like....

If former hostage Susanne Osthoff had been better advised, she probably would have opted against appearing on German television entirely covered in a black headscarf. The hijab, which left only a pair of slits for her eyes, made the freed hostage look like a disturbing cross between a Chechen Black Widow suicide bomber and a ninja. On Wednesday night, 10 days after her release from captivity, a televised interview with Osthoff, who had been held in Iraq for three weeks, was broadcast on the German public television channel ZDF. In the interview's introduction, the presenter explained that Osthoff's choice of...

Patrick and Katherine Stethem have forsaken their quiet life in a Loudoun [Virginia] suburb to call for justice. They don't relish the spotlight. But they'll go there if it will get the job done. The job is to get the U.S. government to use its influence to get Mohammed Ali Hamadi into a U.S. courtroom. To get the Lebanese government to turn Hamadi over. To get Hezbollah to assume the mantle of a legitimate political party. It's been 20 years since Hezbollah terrorists – two on a hijacked plane and two on the ground -- murdered Patrick Stethem's older brother,...

I was quite clearly told about whom it concerned, namely a grouping of the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi group," Susanne Osthoff said in an interview conducted by German public television station ZDF on Tuesday and broadcast on Wednesday. Zarqawi, who has a $25 million reward offered for his capture, is blamed for a relentless series of attacks, suicide bombings and beheadings in Iraq. His supporters have killed many, if not most, of the people they are known to have abducted. The archaeologist, who converted to Islam and lived in Iraq, was seized heading north from Baghdad on November 25 by gunmen...

A former German hostage who spent 24 days in the hands of captors in Iraq said Monday that her kidnappers were not criminals and had demanded humanitarian aid for Sunni Arab regions. Speaking to Doha, Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera, Susanne Osthoff said her captors told her not to be afraid as her kidnapping was "politically motivated." "Do not be afraid. We do not harm women or children and you are a Muslim," she quoted them as saying. "I was so happy to know that I had not fallen into the hands of criminals," she said. Osthoff, a Muslim convert who...

DUBAI (AFP) - A former German hostage who spent 24 days in the hands of unknown captors in Iraq said her kidnappers were not criminals and had demanded humanitarian aid for Sunni Arab regions. Speaking to Doha-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera, Susanne Osthoff said her captors told her not to be afraid as her kidnapping was "politically motivated." "Do not be afraid. We do not harm women or children and you are a Muslim," she quoted them as saying. "I was so happy to know that I had not fallen into the hands of criminals," she said. Osthoff, a Muslim convert...

BAGHDAD, Iraq Nov 29, 2005 — Photos broadcast Tuesday showed a blindfolded German woman being led away by armed captors in the latest kidnapping of a Westerner in Iraq. Six Iranian pilgrims, meanwhile, were abducted by gunmen north of Baghdad. Separately, the aid group Christian Peacemaker Teams confirmed that four people from the group had been taken hostage Saturday and that Norman Kember, a 74-year-old Briton, was among them. The U.S. Embassy has confirmed an American is missing in Iraq presumably one of the aid workers. Also Tuesday, two U.S. soldiers assigned to Task Force Baghdad were killed when their...