Jill has lived there since 2001. She was a reporter for the Jordan Times.
Thanks. It looks like she went to Iraq around June 2003.
"Carroll moved to Iraq shortly after the US invasion from Jordan, where she was studying Arabic and working at the English-language Jordan Times."
As deadline passes, Iraqi official thinks Jill Carroll is alive
Meanwhile, reactions from her friends and colleagues paint a clear picture of Ms. Carroll's life as a Middle East correspondent and of her dedication to in-depth coverage of Iraq.
"Jill's ability to help others understand the issues facing all groups in Iraq has been invaluable," said Monitor Editor Richard Bergenheim in a statement released Tuesday.
Carroll's reporting has been highly regarded since her college days, when she wrote for the student paper at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
After college, Carroll worked as a reporting assistant for The Wall Street Journal until August 2002. She then moved to Jordan, and reported for the Jordan Times before pursuing a freelance career.
"All I ever wanted to be was a foreign correspondent," Carroll wrote in an American Journalism Review piece describing the lives of freelancers in Iraq.
Carroll's friends in Bagdhad note that she is motivated not just by her professionalism, but also by a love of Iraq, a country that she has come to call "home."
Letter from Baghdad: What a Way to Make a Living
"The sense that I could do more good in the Middle East than in the U.S. drove me to move to Jordan six months before the war to learn as much about the region as possible before the fighting began. All I ever wanted to be was a foreign correspondent, so when I was laid off from my reporting assistant job at the Wall Street Journal in August 2002, it seemed the right time to try to make it happen. There was bound to be plenty of parachute journalism once the war started, and I didn't want to be a part of that. "
"The anger and violence have only gotten worse since then, and a new terror has been added: kidnapping. Some 200 foreigners, several freelance journalists among them, have been kidnapped in Iraq since insurgents adopted the tactic last April."
"But most agree such attacks have more to do with bad luck than with freelancing. And they say they don't need to take extra chances to get stories that will sell." \