Reporter who was kidnapped in Baghdad was known for pursuing gutsy, low-budget assignments

BAGHDAD (AP) — American freelance journalist Shelly Kittleson often worked without official assignments from editors and on a shoestring budget, taking shared taxis to lawless corners Iraq where militia rule outweighs government control.

Kittleson, 49, has been living abroad for years, briefly using Rome as a base and building a respected journalism career in the Middle East. on tuesday he disappeared after being forced into a car by two people busy Baghdad Security camera footage at the intersection has emerged.

“He’s a great reporter and always wants to go to areas no one else wants to go,” said Patrizio Nissirio, a former editor of the Italian news agency ANSA who has known Kittleson since 2011, when he worked as a translator for the agency.

“I told him, ‘You don’t have to be in a war zone to do good journalism,’ and he said, ‘I think my work has value when I’m in those areas,'” Nissirio said.

A curious reporter who often works alone

Friends and fellow journalists describe Kittleson as a determined, courageous reporter who spent more than a decade reporting from Iraq, Syria and the Middle East for a variety of news outlets, including Al-Monitor, a regional news site.

Extremely curious and self-directed, he often blended in with local communities, sometimes staying with families rather than hotels.

Her independence meant that she often worked alone, traveled long distances, and always carried heavy items with her while operating without the support of a larger news organization that could provide some protection.

Friends say the Wisconsin native was kind and spiritual and had embraced Islam.

According to his mother, Barb Kittleson, he left Wisconsin in 1995, when he was 19, and went first to Italy; She went to school here and worked as a nanny. He added that he spent nearly 10 years in Italy before eventually settling in Iraq.

Kittleson’s mother said she hasn’t seen her daughter in person since 2002, but they exchange emails several times a week, including on Monday when her daughter sent her several photos.

“She said, ‘Here’s a current picture of me,’” her mother told the Associated Press. “That’s what he does quickly most of the time.”

He is a vegetarian, and according to his close Iraqi friends, it is often difficult to adapt to this lifestyle in the meat-heavy Middle Eastern countries. He often made fun of his wearisome bags, which he was reluctant to leave at the modest hotel where he stayed in Baghdad.

Three Iraqi friends and acquaintances of Kittleson spoke about him on condition of anonymity because they fear reprisals from armed groups if they are publicly linked to him.

In his last conversations before he was kidnapped, he asked colleagues and friends about intercity transportation routes and continued to publish stories.

US officials warn of militia threat

Hours before he was kidnapped, Kittleson met a friend in Baghdad’s Karrada neighborhood and said he received a warning: U.S. officials had told him there was a militia group He intended to target her.. He did not believe the threat was credible.

Iraqi colleagues said Kittleson had been stopped at checkpoints by security forces and militia before and had always managed to secure his release. “They won’t be able to hurt me,” he told his friend before he was kidnapped that afternoon.

Instead, he said he had no assignments while in Baghdad and cited increasing financial trouble. He had been in financial trouble for a long time and lived a frugal life.

As a freelancer, he often relied on support from Iraqi journalists.

On March 9, Kittleson was in Syria and trying to enter Iraq through the Al Qaim border crossing. Border police granted him a visa, but he was soon stopped by Iraqi intelligence officers who turned on him, citing kidnapping threats, according to three different accounts from people he called that day.

Kittleson then traveled to Jordan and from there entered Iraq with little trouble.

“He was always complaining about the treatment of freelance journalists, saying they weren’t paid enough. He was always trying to make ends meet and said he would sleep on any couch he could find, unlike big-name foreign correspondents who sleep in luxury hotels,” Nissirio said.

“His work was always difficult, but he had a passion that I respected and appreciated.”

Kittleson published his latest story in the Italian newspaper Il Foglio on Monday. The focus was on the impact of the Iran war on the Kurdish region of Iraq.

“Journalism was what he wanted to do most,” Kittleson’s mother said. “I came home and asked him not to do this, but he said, ‘I’m helping people.'”

___

Associated Press writers Trisha Thomas in Rome and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.