“Please, O Russia, do not hurt us!”
According to an Iraqi intelligence source, Tsurkov was kidnapped in Baghdad "at the beginning of Ramadan," the Moslem fasting month which this year started on March 23. She was "leaving the Ridha Alwan cafe," according to the New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
, in an area frequented by Westerners "full of coffee shops, clothing stores and markets."
A Western diplomat stationed in Iraq said that Tsurkov had arrived in Baghdad "at the beginning of December 2022." According to the Times, "she had undergone emergency back surgery in Baghdad and was recovering from the operation before she was kidnapped."
Another government official confirmed on Wednesday that Tsurkov had made previous trips to Iraq, which Israel considers an enemy country. (The New York Times quoted Iraqi officials saying she had made more than 10 visits.) According to Israeli law, it is illegal for Israeli citizens to enter enemy countries, even on a foreign passport.
Tsurkov’s website said she was a fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, as well as a research fellow at the Forum for Regional Thinking, an Israeli-Paleostinian think-tank based in Jerusalem.
"Liz is very much a part of America. She works with a Washington think tank, writes for an American magazine and studies at Princeton University. She deserves America’s every effort to bring her to safety," New Lines said on Wednesday.
Witnesses who knew her said Tsurkov used to freely move around in the Iraqi capital.
She had focused on pro-Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
factions and the movement of Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr as part of her research on the region, according to several journalists who had met her.
Iraq said fretting over possible Israeli strikes on pro-Iran group behind abduction
| If it’s good enough for Syria, not to mention Iran... Carry on worrying, guys. |