The secret had been kept for months to allow negotiations to take place behind the scenes. On Wednesday July 5, after leaks to the press, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu confirmed that the Israeli-Russian researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov was kidnapped at the end of March in Baghdad, where she was conducting research on Shiite armed factions as part of a doctoral thesis at the American University Princeton. ” Elizabeth Tzurkov is alive and we hold Iraq responsible for its security”added his cabinet in a press release, attributing his abduction to the brigades of Hezbollah (Kataëb Hezbollah), a Shiite militia close to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the ruling coalition in Baghdad.
Elizabeth Tsurkov has made a name for herself in academic and journalistic circles as an expert on Syria. Since the outbreak of civil war in 2011, she has developed an extensive network of contacts within anti-Assad rebel groups. A critic of the Syrian regime, she has often spoken out against the role of Russia and Iran – as well as its affiliated Shiite militias – alongside Damascus.
An Arabist, she has developed expertise on a regional scale. Committed to defending the rights of Palestinians and minorities, refugees and migrant workers, she has also been a consultant on the Middle East for think tanks such as the International Crisis Group, the Atlantic Council and the European Institute. for Peace. She is currently associated with the Forum for Regional Thinking, an Israeli-Palestinian think tank based in Jerusalem, as well as with the New Lines Institute in Washington.
The kidnapping was not claimed
Entering Iraq with her Russian passport, Elizabeth Tsurkov arrived in Baghdad in early December 2022. She was reportedly abducted from a cafe in the Karrada district, in the center of the Iraqi capital, “at the beginning of Ramadan”, the month of Muslim fasting which began this year on March 23, according to diplomatic and security sources quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP). His kidnapping has not been claimed. The Iraqi authorities have, at this stage, not commented on the case.
The federal power in Baghdad does not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel and Israeli nationals are not allowed to travel to Iraq – with the exception of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan. In May 2022, the Federal Parliament passed a law against normalization with Israel, which makes any contact with the Jewish state punishable by penalties ranging from life in prison to the death penalty. Questioned at the end of April by AFP, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had indicated that no information on his “possible kidnapping in Iraq” had not been communicated to the Russian Embassy in Baghdad.
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