RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Smiling broadly, journalist Jill Carroll arrived Saturday under U.S. military protection in Germany, the first stop on her return to the United States after 82 days in captivity in Iraq.

Carroll, a 28-year-old freelancer for the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor, was seized Jan. 7 in Baghdad.

She was dropped off Thursday at an office of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab organization, and later escorted by the U.S. military to the Green Zone, the fortified compound in Baghdad.

Ramstein officials said she was taken to guest quarters at the air base but was expected to leave for Boston later Saturday on a flight out of Frankfurt. But by early afternoon, there was no word of her departure and it was unclear whether she would return to the United States on Saturday.