US and Iraqi officials say kidnapped journalist had been warned of threats

BAGHDAD (AP) — An American journalist who was kidnapped in Baghdad had tried to cross from Syria into Iraq three weeks earlier and was initially turned back, an Iraqi official said Wednesday.

U.S. and Iraqi officials said Shelly Renee Kittleson had also been warned of threats against her in the days before her abduction. A freelance journalist who has worked for years in Iraq and Syria, Kittleson was kidnapped from a street in the Iraqi capital Tuesday and remains missing.

Hussein Alawi, an adviser to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, said Kittleson had sought to enter via the al-Qaim crossing from Syria on March 9 but was turned back because she did not have a press work permit and because security concerns due to “the escalation of the war and aerial projectiles over Iraqi airspace as a result of the war on Iran.”

She later entered the country after obtaining a single-entry visa to Iraq valid for 60 days issued to allow foreign citizens stranded in neighboring countries to “transit through Iraq to reach their home countries via available transport routes,” he said.

Kittleson entered Baghdad a few days before she was kidnapped and was staying in a hotel in the capital, he said.

“The incident is being followed closely by Iraqi security and intelligence agencies under the supervision of” al-Sudani, Alawi said. He noted that one suspect believed to be involved in the kidnapping plot has been arrested and is being interrogated.

Iraqi security forces gave chase to her captors and arrested one suspect after the car he was driving crashed, but other kidnappers were able to escape with the journalist in a second car.

An Iraqi intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, said Iraqi authorities believe she is being held in Baghdad and are trying to locate her and secure her release. He said authorities “have information about the abducting party” but declined to give more details.

U.S. officials have alleged that Kittleson was taken by Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-linked Iraqi militia that has been implicated in previous kidnappings of foreigners. The group has not claimed the kidnapping and the Iraqi government has not publicly said anything about the kidnappers' affiliation.

The Iraqi intelligence official said that prior to Kittleson's abduction, Iraqis had contacted U.S. officials to notify them that there was a specific kidnapping threat against her by Iran-affiliated militias.

Dylan Johnson, U.S. assistant secretary of state for public affairs, said on X Tuesday that the “State Department previously fulfilled our duty to warn this individual of threats against them.”

A U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said, “She was contacted multiple times with warnings of the threats against her," including as late as the night before the kidnapping.

Surveillance footage that was obtained by The Associated Press shows what seems to be the moment the journalist was kidnapped in Baghdad. It shows two men approaching a person standing on a street corner and ushering the person into the back of a car. There appears to be a brief struggle to shut the car door before the men get into the vehicle and it drives away.

Iran-backed militias in Iraq have launched regular attacks on U.S. facilities in the country since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.