Rory Carroll (born 1972) is an Irish journalist working for The Guardian who has reported from the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Latin America and Los Angeles. He is the Ireland correspondent for The Guardian. His book on Hugo Chávez, Comandante, was published in March 2013. Early life and career Born in Dublin, Carroll is a graduate of Blackrock College, Trinity College and Dublin City University. He began his career at The Irish News in Belfast, working as a reporter and diarist from 1995 to 1997, when he was named young journalist of the year in Northern Ireland's media awards. From 1999, he was deployed by The Guardian as a foreign correspondent in Yemen. and Serbia for the aftermath of the Kosovo war. His report from Qalaye Niazi, where a wedding party was bombed by US planes, fuelled criticism of the Pentagon's air campaign. He reported on the UK's first overseas combat deployment since the first Gulf War. Africa correspondent He interviewed a Liberian female rebel commander (nicknamed "Black Diamond"). His article about rape in Congo provided the introduction to an essay by Cherie Blair for a Human Rights Watch volume on torture. Carroll's article about Hamilton Naki that appeared in The Guardian in 2003 was cited by The New York Times as the original source of their erroneous reporting in 2005 about the role Hamilton Naki played when the first heart transplant was performed at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa in 1967. Iraq correspondent Carroll took over The Guardian'''s Baghdad bureau in January 2005. He covered the US occupation, suicide bombings, the formation of Iraqi military and police units, growing sectarian tension, and the death of several friends, including Marla Ruzicka. On 19 October 2005 he was abducted in Baghdad after carrying out an interview with a victim of Saddam Hussein's regime in Sadr City. The interview had been arranged with the assistance of the Baghdad office of Moqtada al-Sadr. The kidnapping resulted in the Irish government deploying the Army Ranger Wing special forces unit and Arabic-speaking intelligence officers from G2. Carroll was released unharmed by his captors a day later after the British, Irish and Iranian governments, among others, lobbied for his release. The Guardian published Carroll's account of the kidnapping soon after. Latin America correspondent In April 2006 he was appointed The Guardian's Latin America correspondent, based in the newspaper's Caracas bureau. His report about oil