Kurdish special forces have rescued a 16-year-old Swedish girl from Islamic State militants near the Iraqi city of Mosul.
Advertisement
They said she had been “misled” by an IS member in Sweden to travel to Syria and later Mosul, the group’s main stronghold in Iraq.
The Kurdish Government said the rescue operation by anti-terrorist forces took place last Wednesday, near Mosul, 225 miles north-west of Baghdad.
The teenage girl from the Swedish town of Boras was rescued on February 17, the statement said, without specifying exactly where that happened.
Swedish media said the girl had called her parents at least three times while being held by IS militants with a group of women in Syria, after somebody lent her a cellphone.
“She is now in the Kurdistan Region and is provided the care afforded to her under global law”, it added.
Her mother told Sweden’s Expressen newspaper that the Islamic State had not recognised the couple’s marriage and separated them.
According to the Aftonbladet news agency, the girl’s boyfriend had recorded a short video last spring in which he addressed the girl’s family, telling them that they should forget about her, as she would not be coming back home.
“She is now in the Kurdish capital, Irbil, being treated, and will be passed onto the Swedish authorities as soon as she is medically cleared by the Kurds”.
Mosul has been controlled by Islamic State since June 2014.
Some 300 Swedes have left to join extremist groups in Iraq and Syria over the past three years, according to Sweden’s security agency.
Advertisement
It said 40 had been killed in combat.
