American journalist kidnapped in Baghdad; security forces launch manhunt

An American woman journalist was kidnapped in central Baghdad on Tuesday, Iraqi officials said. Security forces launched an operation to track the kidnappers after one vehicle involved in the abduction crashed during a pursuit, leading to the arrest of a suspect

Baghdad: An American journalist was kidnapped Tuesday in Baghdad and Iraqi security forces are pursuing her captors, Iraqi officials said.

The Iraqi interior ministry said in a statement that a foreign journalist had been kidnapped, without giving more details about the journalist.

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Two Iraqi security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly about the case, said the kidnapped journalist was a woman with US citizenship.

They said that two cars were involved in the kidnapping, one of which crashed and was apprehended while being pursued by authorities near the town of Al-Haswa in Babil province southwest of Baghdad, and the journalist was transferred to a second car that fled the scene.

The interior ministry said that security forces had launched an operation to track down the kidnappers, “acting on precise intelligence and through intensive field operations” after intercepting a vehicle belonging to the kidnappers that overturned as they tried to flee.

One suspect was arrested and one of the vehicles used in the kidnapping was seized, but others remain on the loose, the statement said.

Two security sources said that a journalist holding US citizenship was kidnapped from central Baghdad, on Saadoun Street.

They added that an alert was circulated to all checkpoints, leading to a pursuit of the kidnappers as they headed southwest of Baghdad toward Babil province.

The sources said the kidnappers’ vehicle, with the journalist inside, was involved in a crash near the town of Al-Haswa in Babil province.

A spokesperson for the US Embassy in Baghdad declined to comment.

It was not immediately clear if the kidnapping was related to the ongoing regional war, but Iran-backed militias in Iraq have launched regular attacks on US facilities in the country since the beginning of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Since the start of the war, the US embassy has warned of kidnapping risks and urged citizens in the country to leave.

Iraqi militias had also kidnapped foreigners before the war.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton graduate student with Israeli and Russian citizenship, disappeared in Baghdad in 2023.

After she was freed and handed over to US authorities in September 2025, she said that she had been held by the Iran-allied Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah.

The group never officially claimed responsibility for kidnapping her.