[IsraelTimes] Israel Prime Minister’s Office announces Elizabeth Tsurkov entered Iraq on her Russian passport in March, says it ’holds Iraq accountable for her safety’
Elizabeth Tsurkov, an Israeli Middle East analyst who also holds Russian citizenship, is being held by a radical Shiite militia in Iraq, the Prime Minister’s Office announced on Wednesday. Tsurkov visited Iraq "on her Russian passport at her own initiative pursuant to work on her doctorate and academic research on behalf of Princeton University in the US," the PMO said in a statement.
She has been missing for several months, and is apparently being held by Kataeb Hezbollah, a paramilitary group backed by Iran, according to the statement. The group is a distinct entity from the Lebanese Hezbollah. The PMO added that Israel "views Iraq as responsible for her fate and safety."
Continued from Page 1
Tsurkov was visiting Iraq for research work on Iran-backed factions in the country, particularly the movement of Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr. A PhD candidate at Princeton, she previously conducted fieldwork in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
and other countries in the region, according to her website.
Iraqi intelligence sources quoted by AFP said that Tsurkov was kidnapped in the Iraqi capital Baghdad "at the beginning of Ramadan," which this year commenced on March 23, as she was leaving a cafe in the Iraqi capital’s Karrada neighborhood,
A Western diplomat stationed in Iraq said that she had arrived in Baghdad "at the beginning of December 2022."
An Israeli official said Tsurkov, 36, was kidnapped in Iraq because of her foreign nationalities, Russian and Israeli, and denied rumors in Arabic media that she was operating on behalf of Israeli intelligence.
"She is absolutely not a member of the Mossad, period, exclamation, underline," the official said in a briefing with Israeli news hounds, adding that Tsurkov was alive and in good health, and that the Israeli government has been in touch with her family.
Another government official confirmed on Wednesday that Tsurkov had made previous trips to Iraq, which Israel considers an enemy country. According to Israeli law, it is illegal for Israeli citizens to enter enemy countries, even on a foreign passport.
The official said that Israeli security officials are working together with their US and Russian counterparts to free Tsurkov as soon as possible.
The abduction has only been announced now because of reports in the foreign press, the official noted, adding that the publicity regarding her situation complicates efforts for her release. News of the abduction first appeared in English on June 14 in an article by 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 spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
expert Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute on the growing power of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and was picked up by other media outlets in the following days.
Tsurkov’s latest tweet is from March 21. Her mother said that she had no idea her daughter was in Iraq.
"The last time I heard from her was two months ago, she said she was in Turkey," she told Hebrew-language media.
Tsurkov, who has served in the Israel Defense Forces and speaks English, Hebrew, Russian and Arabic, has two degrees in international relations and Middle East studies from Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University, and is a fellow at the American News Lines Institute think tank and the Jerusalem-based Israeli-Paleostinian Forum for Regional Thinking.
The New Lines Institute said that its last contact with Tsurkov was on March 19. She had reportedly told her colleagues that she "had enough of doing field research in the Middle East and wanted to return to Princeton."
Just a week later, New Line’s staff were informed of her kidnapping in Baghdad, and decided not to publicize the event in the hope of a quick release and "out of respect for her family’s wishes," according to an article published in the Institute’s magazine. That detail contradicted Tsurkov’s mother’s assertion that she did not know Elizabeth’s whereabouts.
According to the think tank, Tsurkov, "a fierce critic of Israeli national security policy," will be released in a negotiation involving Iran, and probably also Russia, since she is a Russian national.
Kataeb Hezbollah (Hezbollah brigades) is one of the most prominent Iran-backed groups operating in Iraq, established in March 2003 following the US invasion of the country. The militia was recognized by the Iraqi government as a component of Iraq’s security forces in 2018 under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a group established with the aim to eradicate the Islamic State
 ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group.
Consequently, the militia today has become an integral part of the Iraqi security establishment while actually being subordinate to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), according to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. 
|
