{"id":56633,"date":"2026-04-07T23:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T23:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/56633\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T23:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T23:32:07","slug":"iraqs-kataeb-hezbollah-airs-shelly-kittleson-propaganda-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/56633\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah airs Shelly Kittleson propaganda video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iraqi militia group Kataeb Hezbollah<\/a> have reportedly aired a video of hostage Shelly Kittleson<\/a> hours after she was reportedly freed from captivity.<\/p>\n

In the video, Kittleson, clearly under duress, speaks to the camera in an apparent ‘confession video’\u00a0 in what appears to be an attempt to justify the group’s kidnapping of the\u00a0American journalist.<\/p>\n

Kittleson, a freelance journalist who has written for The New Arab<\/a>,\u00a0starts by confirming her identity and says that she speaks English, Italian and Arabic.<\/p>\n

She then says she had contact with the Iraqi military and the Iraqi-Kurdish Peshmerga, and was allegedly trained and had communication with the US military and government.<\/p>\n

Kittleson spoke about her recent media work in Iraq covering the US-Israeli war on Iran, criticised the Trump administration, and asked the group to free her, promising never to do anything to ‘harm’ the Iraqi resistance.<\/p>\n

The details Kittleson shared on video point toward a staged ‘confession’ made under duress rather than an accurate description of her activities in Iraq.<\/p>\n

Such videos have been common with hostages held by armed groups in Iraq.<\/p>\n

Kittleson was kidnapped in Baghdad on 31 March, and reportedly taken by the group to\u00a0Jurf al-Sakhar, around 40km from the Iraqi capital.<\/p>\n

She is known to be a well-respected journalist who has spent a considerable time in the MENA region and has good ties with the communities she has worked with.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Kataeb Hezbollah had agreed to release her, with The New York Times\u00a0later claiming that she had been freed but was still in Iraq.<\/p>\n

The New Arab could not confirm her status.<\/p>\n

Kataeb Hezbollah, part of the Popular Mobilisation Forces militia coalition, are considered close to the Iranian government, and their bases have been targeted in US air strikes over the past months<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iraqi militia group Kataeb Hezbollah have reportedly aired a video of hostage Shelly Kittleson hours after she was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[14],"tags":[1711,94,2836],"class_list":["post-56633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iraq","tag-baghdad","tag-iraq","tag-kataeb-hezbollah"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116366039009031405","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56633","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=56633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}