Kurdish forces say they've rescued a Swedish teen held in Iraq

A Kurdish peshmerga soldier.
(Image credit: John Moore/Getty Images)

The Kurdistan Region Security Council announced Tuesday it rescued a 16-year-old Swedish girl from the Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq.

Swedish media reports that the girl and her boyfriend were persuaded to travel in June first to Syria and then to Mosul by an ISIS operative in Sweden, and eventually she became a captive of the group. She was pregnant when she arrived, and it's been reported that she gave birth to a son in November. The Kurdish forces reportedly rescued her on Feb. 17, and said she is currently in the Kurdistan region and will soon be transferred to Swedish authorities. A senior official told Agence France-Presse the operation was carried out "secretly in the center of Mosul" without "clashes or the arrest of any gunmen."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.