{"id":375441,"date":"2026-03-31T22:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T22:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/375441\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T22:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T22:57:08","slug":"american-journalist-shelly-kittleson-kidnapped-in-baghdad-police-officials-say-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/375441\/","title":{"rendered":"American journalist Shelly Kittleson kidnapped in Baghdad, police officials say \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/united-states\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/united-states\/\">US<\/a> journalist \u200cwas kidnapped in Baghdad on Tuesday and authorities are searching the city \u200bfor her, two police officials said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/iraq\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/iraq\/\">Iraqi<\/a> interior ministry confirmed the abduction of a woman journalist but did not disclose her nationality. \u200bThe ministry said one suspect was arrested and efforts were ongoing to free \u2060the journalist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Police officials who declined to be named later \u200cidentified the \u200cvictim \u200bas Shelly Kittleson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Middle East news site AL-Monitor said Kittleson is a freelance journalist \u2060based in Rome \u200bwho has covered several wars in \u200bthe region and contributed articles to the outlet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A state department official said the US was aware of \u2060the reported kidnapping of an \u200bAmerican journalist in Baghdad, adding that Washington \u200bhad previously issued a warning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThe State Department previously fulfilled our duty \u200cto warn this individual of threats \u200bagainst them and we will continue to co-ordinate with the FBI to \u2060ensure their release as \u2060quickly as possible,\u201d \u200bassistant secretary of state for global public affairs Dylan Johnson said on X. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He did not name Kittleson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Johnson reiterated that Americans are advised not to travel to Iraq for any reason. The police officials said Kittleson was seized by four men in civilian clothes and taken in a vehicle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The search is focused on the eastern part \u200cof the capital where \u2060the kidnappers\u2019 vehicle was headed, they added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">An Israeli-Russian graduate student from Princeton University was kidnapped by an \u200cIran-aligned Shiite militia during a research trip to Iraq in March 2023 \u200band was released in 2025. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A US journalist \u200cwas kidnapped in Baghdad on Tuesday and authorities are searching the city \u200bfor her, two&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,12693,43,40,38,41,39,20966,115],"class_list":["post-375441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-iraq","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trump-presidency","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}