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Kidnapped Academic Elizabeth Tsurkov Released in Iraq

A file photo from 2017 of Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov who was kidnapped in Baghdad in March 2023. Ahmad Mohamad / Ahmad Mohamad/AFP/File
A file photo from 2017 of Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov who was kidnapped in Baghdad in March 2023. Ahmad Mohamad / Ahmad Mohamad/AFP/File
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Kidnapped Academic Elizabeth Tsurkov Released in Iraq

A file photo from 2017 of Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov who was kidnapped in Baghdad in March 2023. Ahmad Mohamad / Ahmad Mohamad/AFP/File
A file photo from 2017 of Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov who was kidnapped in Baghdad in March 2023. Ahmad Mohamad / Ahmad Mohamad/AFP/File

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and US President Donald Trump announced Tuesday the release of Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov who was kidnapped in Baghdad in March 2023.

While Iraq said a "group of outlaws" kidnapped Tsurkov, Trump announced she was released by the powerful pro-Iran Kataeb Hezbollah group.

"As a culmination of extensive efforts exerted by our security services over the course of many months, we announce the release of the Russian citizen, Elizabeth Tsurkov," Sudani said on X.

Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Tsurkov "was just released" by Kataeb Hezbollah "after being tortured for many months" and was now at the US embassy in Baghdad.

Sabah al-Numan, the military spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister, said later in a statement that "following extensive and high-level security and intelligence efforts... authorities succeeded, on September 9, in locating and reaching the site of her detention."

Tsurkov was delivered to the US embassy to "facilitate her reunion with her sister, a US citizen," he added.

The former captive's sister, Emma Tsurkov, thanked Trump, his special envoy Adam Boehler, the US embassy in Baghdad and the non-profit group Global Reach for their roles in securing the release.

"My entire family is incredibly happy. We cannot wait to see Elizabeth and give her all the love we have been waiting to share for 903 days," she posted on social media

Numan said Tsurkov was kidnapped by a "group of outlaws" without naming any party, and added that Iraq's security forces "will continue to pursue all those involved in this crime and ensure they are held accountable."

Phd candidate

Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University and fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, went missing in Iraq in March 2023.

She had likely entered Iraq on her Russian passport and had travelled to the country as part of her doctoral studies.

She was active on Twitter, where she has tens of thousands of followers and describes herself as "passionate about human rights".

In Baghdad, she had focused on pro-Iran factions and the movement of Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr as part of her research on the region.

She was abducted as she was leaving a cafe in the Iraqi capital's Karrada neighborhood, an Iraqi intelligence source told AFP in 2023.

Israeli authorities blamed Kataeb Hezbollah for her disappearance, but the group implied that it was not involved.

Kataeb Hezbollah?

Kataeb Hezbollah did not claim in 2023 the abduction, but a source in the group told AFP Tuesday Tsurkov was released to spare Iraq any "conflicts".

She "was released according to conditions, the most important of which was to facilitate the withdrawal of US forces without a fight and to spare Iraq any conflicts or fighting," the source said.

"She was released and not liberated. No military operation was carried out to free her," the source added.

Like other armed groups trained by Iran during the war against the ISIS group, Kataeb Hezbollah were integrated into the regular security forces as part of the Hashed al-Shaabi or the Popular Mobilization force (PMF).

However, the faction has developed a reputation for sometimes acting on its own.

The group and other Iran-backed Iraqi factions have been calling for the withdrawal of US troops deployed in Iraq at Baghdad's invitation as part of the anti-ISIS coalition.

US forces in Iraq and neighboring Syria were repeatedly targeted by Kataeb Hezbollah and other pro-Iran groups following the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023.

They have responded with heavy strikes on Tehran-linked targets, and the attacks have halted.

The US and Iraq have announced that the anti-IS coalition would end its decade-long military mission in federal Iraq in 2025, and by September 2026 in the autonomous Kurdistan region in the country's north.

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Arab World

Lebanon PM Pledges Reconstruction on Visit to Ruined Border Towns

This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
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Lebanon PM Pledges Reconstruction on Visit to Ruined Border Towns

This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam visited heavily damaged towns near the Israeli border on Saturday, pledging reconstruction.

It was his first trip to the southern border area since the army said it finished disarming Hezbollah there, in January.

Swathes of south Lebanon's border areas remain in ruins and largely deserted more than a year after a US-brokered November 2024 ceasefire sought to end hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

Lebanon's government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, and the army last month said it had completed the first phase of its plan to do so, covering the area between the Litani River and the Israeli border about 30 kilometers (20 miles) further south.

Visiting Tayr Harfa, around three kilometers from the border, and nearby Yarine, Salam said frontier towns and villages had suffered "a true catastrophe".

He vowed authorities would begin key projects including restoring roads, communications networks and water in the two towns.

Locals gathered on the rubble of buildings to greet Salam and the delegation of accompanying officials in nearby Dhayra, some waving Lebanese flags.

In a meeting in Bint Jbeil, further east, with officials including lawmakers from Hezbollah and its ally the Amal movement, Salam said authorities would "rehabilitate 32 kilometers of roads, reconnect the severed communications network, repair water infrastructure" and power lines in the district.

Last year, the World Bank announced it had approved $250 million to support Lebanon's post-war reconstruction, after estimating that it would cost around $11 billion in total.

Salam said funds including from the World Bank would be used for the reconstruction and rehabilitation projects.

The second phase of the government's disarmament plan for Hezbollah concerns the area between the Litani and the Awali rivers, around 40 kilometers south of Beirut.

Israel, which accuses Hezbollah of rearming, has criticized the army's progress as insufficient, while Hezbollah has rejected calls to surrender its weapons.

Despite the truce, Israel has kept up regular strikes on what it usually says are Hezbollah targets and maintains troops in five south Lebanon areas.

Lebanese officials have accused Israel of seeking to prevent reconstruction in the heavily damaged south with repeated strikes on bulldozers, excavators and prefabricated houses.

Visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Friday said the reform of Lebanon's banking system needed to precede international funding for reconstruction efforts.

The French diplomat met Lebanon's army chief Rodolphe Haykal on Saturday, the military said.

Arab World

Over 2,200 ISIS Detainees Transferred to Iraq from Syria, Says Iraqi Official

One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
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Over 2,200 ISIS Detainees Transferred to Iraq from Syria, Says Iraqi Official

One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)

Iraq has so far received 2,225 ISIS group detainees, whom the US military began transferring from Syria last month, an Iraqi official told AFP on Saturday.

They are among up to 7,000 ISIS detainees whose transfer from Syria to Iraq the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced last month, in a move it said was aimed at "ensuring that the terrorists remain in secure detention facilities".

Previously, they had been held in prisons and camps administered by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria.

The announcement of the transfer plan last month came after US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declared that the SDF's role in confronting ISIS had come to an end.

Saad Maan, head of the security information cell attached to the Iraqi prime minister's office, told AFP on Saturday that "Iraq has received 2,225 terrorists from the Syrian side by land and air, in coordination with the international coalition", which Washington has led since 2014 to fight IS.

He said they are being held in "strict, regular detention centers".

A Kurdish military source confirmed to AFP the "continued transfer of ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq under the protection of the international coalition".

On Saturday, an AFP photographer near the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria saw a US military convoy and 11 buses with tinted windows.

- Iraq calls for repatriation -

ISIS seized swathes of northern and western Iraq starting in 2014, until Iraqi forces, backed by the international coalition, managed to defeat it in 2017.

Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the extremists.

In recent years, Iraqi courts have issued death and life sentences against those convicted of terrorism offences.

Thousands of Iraqis and foreign nationals convicted of membership in the group are incarcerated in Iraqi prisons.

On Monday, the Iraqi judiciary announced it had begun investigative procedures involving 1,387 detainees it received as part of the US military's operation.

In a statement to the Iraqi News Agency on Saturday, Maan said "the established principle is to try all those involved in crimes against Iraqis and those belonging to the terrorist ISIS organization before the competent Iraqi courts".

Among the detainees being transferred to Iraq are Syrians, Iraqis, Europeans and holders of other nationalities, according to Iraqi security sources.

Iraq is calling on the concerned countries to repatriate their citizens and ensure their prosecution.

Maan noted that "the process of handing over the terrorists to their countries will begin once the legal requirements are completed".

Arab World

Drone Attack by RSF in Sudan Kills 24, Including 8 Children, Doctors’ Group Says

Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
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Drone Attack by RSF in Sudan Kills 24, Including 8 Children, Doctors’ Group Says

Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)

A drone attack by a notorious paramilitary group hit a vehicle carrying displaced families in central Sudan Saturday, killing at least 24 people, including eight children, a doctors’ group said.

The attack by the Rapid Support Forces occurred close to the city of Rahad in North Kordofan province, said the Sudan Doctors Network, which tracks the country’s ongoing war.

The vehicle transported displaced people who fled fighting in the Dubeiker area of North Kordofan, the doctors’ group said in a statement. Among the dead children were two infants, the group said.

The doctors’ group urged the international community and rights organizations to “take immediate action to protect civilians and hold the RSF leadership directly accountable for these violations.”

There was no immediate comment from the RSF, which has been at war against the Sudanese military for control of the country for about three years.

Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.

The devastating war has killed more than 40,000 people, according to UN figures, but aid groups say that is an undercount and the true number could be many times higher.

It created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with over 14 million people forced to flee their homes. It fueled disease outbreaks and pushed parts of the country into famine.