Four Iraqis Are Held in Kidnapping Of Reporter

Caldwell did not say when the searches and arrests occurred. But the Associated Press, reporting details of the case that it had agreed to withhold until the arrests were announced, said the house near Habbaniyah was discovered and the first arrest made on May 19. The house lies within view of a fence that surrounds the Taqqadum logistics base, where dozens of U.S. helicopters and planes fly in and out each day ferrying supplies for Marines serving in western Iraq.

First Lt. Jake Cusack, 24, of Grand Rapids, Mich., had put together intelligence reports to conclude that the house was likely used to hide Carroll, the AP reported. Marines decided to check it out.

On the afternoon of the operation, 20 Marines driving to the targeted home were struck by a roadside bomb, although none was injured. Shortly afterward, a second bomb exploded, and insurgents fired on the Marines from a car. "We knew it was a limited time window," Cusack told the AP. "It was our best shot at it."

When they arrived at the house, the Marines told the owner that their stopover was a routine visit. While several spoke with the man in his living room, others quickly searched the rest of the home. They confirmed that the house matched their intelligence reports. They said they also found a slip of paper with Carroll's name written on it, $3,600 in U.S. currency and an AK-47 assault rifle hidden in a car outside.

"Hey, sir, don't react but this is it," Cusack recalled radioing to his commanding officer, who was still chatting with the suspect.

Marines said the owner calmly responded to their questions -- until one Marine mentioned how a recent spate of kidnappings in the area had angered him. "He blanches, just for a second, then [a Marine] says, 'All right, you're coming up with us,' " Cusack told the news service.

Caldwell, the military spokesman, said evidence gathered at the first house led to a raid on a house near Fallujah. That house, Caldwell said, was believed to be the residence of one of the kidnappers, a member of the Mujaheddin Shura Council, an insurgent coalition that includes the group al-Qaeda in Iraq. Marines arrested one man there, but it was unclear whether he was the targeted council member.

A third raid, this time by members of the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division, was conducted at a house where Carroll apparently was held near Abu Ghraib, just outside Baghdad.

The soldiers found and disarmed "devices that had been set to intentionally inflict harm on them if they entered the home. . . . And going in, they did find two hostages -- two kidnap victims in this home here, which they were able to free and return them back to their families," Caldwell said.

Evidence gathered at the Abu Ghraib house, Caldwell said, led to a fourth site in Baghdad's Kadhimiyah neighborhood -- another spot where Carroll was believed to have been held.