The country apprehended one of the militants suspected of having committed the crime, according to the US
A jornalista americana Shelly Kittleson was kidnapped this Tuesday (31) in Baghdad, Iraq, and Iraqi security forces are pursuing their captors, Iraqi officials said.
Iraq detained a militant linked to an Iranian-backed group to carry out the journalist’s kidnapping, the United States said.
“An individual with ties to the Iran-aligned paramilitary group Kataib Hezballah and suspected of involvement in the kidnapping has been detained by Iraqi authorities,” wrote Dylan Johnson, Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs, in X.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said in a statement that a foreign journalist had been kidnapped, without providing further details about her.
“We are deeply alarmed by the kidnapping of Al-Monitor contributor Shelly Kittleson in Iraq on Tuesday. We demand your immediate and safe release“, reported the independent news website Al-Monitor, where Kittleson is a contributor.
According to the vehicle, Shelly spent years in Italy and currently resides in Rome. She is Known for her reporting from war zones in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and contributes to several publications, including Al-Monitor. Trump administration sources confirmed to the outlet that they were aware of the threat against her and advised her not to travel to Iraq.
Two Iraqi security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to the Associated Press (AP) because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the case, said two cars were used in the kidnapping: one of them crashed and was impounded, while one second vehicle fled the scene, taking the journalist towards the south of Baghdad.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry reported that security forces launched an operation to locate the kidnappers, “acting on the basis of accurate information and through intense field operations”, after intercepting a vehicle belonging to the criminals that overturned during their escape attempt.
A suspect was arrested and the vehicle was seized.but the others involved remain at large, according to the statement. A spokesman for the US embassy in Baghdad declined to comment.
It is not yet clear whether the kidnapping is related to the ongoing war in the Middle East, but Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have carried out frequent attacks against US facilities in the country since the beginning of the conflict.
Since February 28, when the war began, the US embassy in Iraq has warned about the risk of kidnappings and recommended that US citizens leave the country. Iraqi militias have also kidnapped foreigners before the war.
Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton doctoral student with Israeli and Russian citizenship, disappeared in Baghdad in 2023. After being released and handed over to American authorities in September 2025, she claimed to have been held captive by the Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah, an ally of Iran. The group never officially claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
*Estadão Content
