BEIJING, Jan. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- The Christian Science Monitor appealed Monday for the release of its freelance contributor who was kidnapped while she was on an assignment for the paper Saturday in Baghdad.

    Jill Carroll, 28, was abducted when gunmen ambushed her car and killed her translator. Her driver, who escaped the incident uninjured, told the paper that the trio had gone to the al Adel district to meet Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Sunni Arab Iraqi Accordance Front. The neighborhood is dominated by Sunni Arabs and is considered one of the toughest in Baghdad.

    After waiting about 25 minutes for al-Dulaimi, who wasn't at the office, the three left in a single car. A group of gunmen stopped them within 300 yards of the office, pulled the driver out, got in the car and drove off with Carroll and her translator.

    "One guy attracted my attention," the driver told the paper. "He jumped in front of me screaming, `Stop! Stop! Stop!' with his left hand up and a pistol in his right hand."

    The body of Carroll's interpreter, Allan Enwiyah, 32, later was found in the same area, shot twice in the head, according to the paper.

    "Jill's ability to help others understand the issues facing all groups in Iraq has been invaluable," Christian Science Monitor Editor Richard Bergenheim said in a written statement. "We are urgently seeking information about Ms. Carroll and are pursuing every avenue to secure her release."

    The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a brief statement Monday. "We can confirm only that another American citizen is missing and that we have been investigating this case ... from the beginning," embassy spokeswoman Elizabeth Colton said. "We condemn all such heinous acts."

    Carroll received a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1999. She had been laid off from her job as a reporting assistant for The Wall Street Journal before heading overseas.

    In the February/March issue of AJR, Carroll wrote that she moved to Jordan in late 2002, six months before the war started, "to learn as much about the region as possible before the fighting began."

    She returned to the United States in August after vacation in Bali, then went back to Baghdad, according to her sister. Enditem

    (Agencies)