{"id":56317,"date":"2026-04-07T19:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T19:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/56317\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T19:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T19:57:11","slug":"american-journalist-released-after-being-abducted-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/56317\/","title":{"rendered":"American Journalist Released After Being Abducted In Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tAmerican freelance journalist <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/shelly-kittleson\/\" id=\"auto-tag_shelly-kittleson\" data-tag=\"shelly-kittleson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shelly Kittleson<\/a> has been released after being abducted a week ago by a Shiite militia group, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/al-monitor\/\" id=\"auto-tag_al-monitor\" data-tag=\"al-monitor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Al-Monitor<\/a>, one of the publications that has employed her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tAlex Plitsas, a CNN national security analyst and her U.S. point of contact, posted on X that they were still awaiting Kittleson\u2019s transfer to U.S. officials. \u201cWe welcome the news of her pending release but will save celebratory statements until she is transferred. The video that was released provided proof of life. We will have more to say when she is in US hands,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tNews outlets began reporting news of her release earlier on Tuesday, after the militia Kataib Hezbollah said in a statement on Telegram that she was being released \u201con the condition that she leaves the country immediately.\u201d Al-Monitor cited two unnamed officials as confirming her release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tKittleson also contributed to Foreign Policy, BBC World Service and Politico, among other publications.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tAccording to the AP, two officials in the militia said that in exchange for freeing Kittleson, several members of the group who had been detained by the Iraqi authorities would be released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"American freelance journalist Shelly Kittleson has been released after being abducted a week ago by a Shiite militia&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[17146,3505,94,5755,18830],"class_list":{"0":"post-56317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iraq","8":"tag-al-monitor","9":"tag-electionline","10":"tag-iraq","11":"tag-kidnapping","12":"tag-shelly-kittleson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116365193570045406","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}