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Jill Carroll: Captivity turns to desperationHostage: The Jill Carroll story, Part 9
Editor's note: This is a content summary of Part 9 of the Jill Carroll series on The Christian Science Monitor.  Jill Carroll and her twin, Katie, at high school graduation in 1995. SPECIAL REPORT
• Interactive: Who's who in Iraq
• Interactive: Sectarian divide
• Timeline: Bloodiest days for civilians
The Christian Science Monitor Abu Hassan was older, athletic, and seething with devotion to jihad. He seemed a veteran fighter -- although, like Abu Qarrar, he loved "Tom and Jerry" cartoons. When he was bored, which was often, he'd use his cell phone to record himself giving fake fiery sermons standing at the top of the stairs as if on a mosque pulpit. Then he'd play them back to hear how he'd sound as if he were a famous imam. (Watch Jill Carroll relive anger, desperation -- 1:13) These two men were my most constant guards. They reported to Abu Ahmed, one of Abu Nour's lieutenants. Abu Ahmed was an Islamic scholar who had just finished an Arabic translation of a Henry Kissinger biography and was reading "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. As the weeks of my captivity turned into months, Abu Qarrar and Abu Hassan became tense and unhappy. They were bored with guard duty and tired of inaction. Captors seemed 'almost in a frenzy'Meanwhile, I was increasingly desperate, fearful and angry. I felt I was beginning to lose my self-control. One of my biggest problems was that I had let myself have hope. Numerous times, the insurgent leader, the black-eyed Abu Nour, had said my release was only a matter of settling details. Inevitably, my mood would soar -- and then the release wouldn't happen. Then there were the videos. They had been astounded when my first hostage video, in which I had been forced to plead for the release of women at Abu Ghraib, had coincided with the freeing of five female prisoners by the U.S. After that, they seemed to be almost in a frenzy to see what else they could get for me. They kept wanting to film different videos with different demands aimed at different audiences. Sometimes I was pleading with the American people in general for help. Once I asked the King of Jordan to free Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, a woman who tried to blow up a Jordanian hotel on November 9, 2005. Another time I begged for aid from the leader of the United Arab Emirates. Later, I made one denouncing him. While only four of my videos ever reached the outside world, I made nearly a dozen, including re-takes done when I didn't cry enough to satisfy my mujahedeen producers. And I dreaded making them, not so much because it's scary to plead for your life in front of a camera, as because I recognized that each one was a guarantee I would remain in captivity for some time longer. Of course, there was an even worse alternative: that the death threats and deadlines they mentioned would be real. Click here Coming tomorrow: Part 10: Freedom Copyright 2006 The Christian Science Monitor 
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-- Abu Qarrar was young, rotund, and seemed new to the mujahedeen lifestyle. He hadn't memorized much of the Quran, unlike his more senior counterparts. He sometimes sneaked glances at the women on the music-video channels when he thought no one was looking.
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