Her name was on a list. That single detail anchors everything that unfolded last Tuesday afternoon on Saadoun Street in Baghdad, when several men in civilian clothes forced American freelance journalist Shelly Kittleson into a silver car and drove southwest of the city. She is 49 and has spent more than a decade tenaciously covering some of the most dangerous regions of the world, refusing to quit the only work she has ever loved.
The warnings had come repeatedly, and they had come with specifics. In the days before her abduction, Shelly was told it was too dangerous and was barred from re-entering Iraq through standard channels after a trip to Syria. So, she found another route, entering through Jordan, where there appeared to be a breakdown in communications, and she was waved through. The warnings continued after that. A CIA source told me the frustration inside the intelligence community runs deep.
The previous Iraqi government had extended Shelly a degree of protection, the agency source stressed, given her routine trips to the front line in the fight against the Islamic State. The new government did not offer the same. Shelly’s name, the source said, was on a list of targets held by Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed paramilitary group and one of the most powerful militias in the region.
