MOUNT HOREB, Wis. – The mother of a freelance American journalist who was released from captivity in Iraq said Wednesday that she hopes her daughter will finally return home to rural Wisconsin after living abroad for decades.
Katib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia group, kidnapped 49-year-old Shelly Kittleson off a Baghdad street corner on March 31. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Tuesday that Kittleson had been released.
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Two officials within the militia, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, told The Associated Press that in exchange for freeing Kittleson, several members of the group who had previously been detained by Iraqi authorities would be released.
Kittleson's mother, Barb Kittleson, said she’s not sure how much U.S. officials want her to say, but that she’s relieved her daughter has been released. She said she went to her local library in Mount Horeb, a village of about 7,000 people in southern Wisconsin, and used a computer there to email her daughter that she hopes she returns to the U.S. and that she's made up her bedroom.
Shelly Kittleson left Wisconsin in 1995 at age 19 for Italy, where she went to school and worked as a nanny. Over the years she has earned a reputation as a determined and gutsy reporter, working from Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East for news outlets including Al-Monitor.
Barb Kittleson said that her husband, Bob, died of pancreatic cancer in 2024 and that she hasn't seen her daughter since 2002, when she visited her while touring Italy. Asked if she misses Shelly, she nodded her head yes.
She said she doesn’t know if her daughter will get her message, noting that U.S. officials are trying to limit contact with her for a week and that she doesn’t know if her daughter's captors took her phone and computer.
Kataib Hezbollah has been accused of kidnapping other foreigners.
Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton graduate student with Israeli and Russian citizenship, disappeared in Baghdad in 2023. After she was freed and handed over to U.S. authorities in September 2025, she said she had been held by Kataib Hezbollah, which never officially claimed responsibility.
Iran-backed militias in Iraq have also launched regular attacks on U.S. facilities in the country since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.