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Swedish teenager rescued from Isis in Iraq | Swedish teenager rescued from Isis in Iraq |
(35 minutes later) | |
Iraqi Kurdish troops have rescued a Swedish teenager from Islamic State near the extremist-controlled city of Mosul, the Kurdish regional government said. | |
The rescue operation by the Kurdish anti-terrorist forces took place on 17 February near Mosul, 225 miles (360km) north-west of Baghdad, it said. | |
The official statement identified the girl by name, saying she was a 16-year-old from the town of Boras who had been “misled” by an Isis member in Sweden to travel to Syria and later to Mosul. | |
It also said the Swedish authorities and the teenager’s family had contacted the Iraqi Kurdish government and asked for help in finding and rescuing the girl. | |
The teenager was now in Iraqi Kurdish territory and being “provided the care afforded to her under international law”, the statement said, adding that she would be “transferred to Swedish authorities to return home once necessary arrangements” were made. | |
The statement provided no details of the rescue operation and did not say whether the teen was mistreated while with Isis. | |
Iraqi Kurdish officials in Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq, declined to provide more details. | |
Mosul was the first major Iraqi city to fall into the hands of Isis militants during their blitz in June 2014, when the group swept across vast areas in the country’s north and west. | |
Mosul remains under Isis control as Iraqi forces, aided by airstrikes carried out by the US-led international coalition, are battling to reclaim ground. Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces are fighting Isis militants to the north and east of the city. |