An Al Qaeda leader believed to have planned the 2006 kidnapping of American journalist Jill Carroll has been captured, the U.S. military said.

CNN reports that U.S.-led forces, on August 11 and August 17, captured two men believed to be senior Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders, including the suspected kidnapping mastermind. Carroll, a freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, was abducted in January 2006 and freed, seemingly unharmed, three months later.

The suspects were identified as Salim Abdallah Ashur al-Shujayri, also known as Abu Uthman, and Ali Rash Nasir Jiyad al-Shammari, also known as Abu Tiba. Abu Uthman is suspected of masterminding Carroll’s abduction. Both men are suspected of overseeing car and homicide bombings targeting Iraqis in order to incite sectarian violence, as well as being connected to other kidnappings, according to a military statement.

The Times in the U.K. reports that associates of Abu Uthman are also thought to have been involved in the kidnap and murder of Margaret Hassan, the 59-year-old aid worker seized by insurgents in west Baghdad in October 2004, and the abduction of British campaigner Norman Kember. A video purporting to show the execution of Hassan, who has British, Irish and Iraqi nationality, was shown a month after her disappearance. Her body has never been found.

Abu Tiba is suspected to have been in charge of as many as 15 Al Qaeda in Iraq "attack cells," providing them with money, weapons and explosives, according to the military.