Kata'ib Hezbollah Official on Elizabeth Tsurkov's Detention and Release in Iraq
This month, U.S. president Donald Trump made the sudden announcement that Israeli-Russian researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov- a doctoral student at Princeton University- had been released in Iraq, following more than two years of detention when she was kidnapped in Baghdad. Trump named Kata’ib Hezbollah- one of the leading ‘pro-resistance’ factions in Iraq, with brigades on the Popular Mobilisation Forces Commission- as responsible for the abduction.
Recently, ‘Abu Ali al-Askary’- a Telegram account run by a security official in Kata’ib Hezbollah- released a statement on her detention and release. I have translated the post and provide an analytical overview below.