Katib Hezbollah’s kidnapping of Shelly Kittleson ended after the U.S. government said the freelance journalist was released from captivity in Iraq, and her mother in Wisconsin said she hoped the next step would be a return home. Barb Kittleson told The Associated Press that she was relieved her daughter was free and that she wants her to come back to rural Mount Horeb, where Kittleson’s family has lived since she left Wisconsin decades earlier.

AP reported that Katib Hezbollah kidnapped the 49-year-old Kittleson on March 31, when she was taken from a street corner in Baghdad. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that Kittleson had been released, and Kittleson’s mother spoke to AP the following day about what she hopes comes next.

In Mount Horeb, a village of about 7,000 people in southern Wisconsin, Barb Kittleson said she went to her local library and used a computer there to email her daughter. She said she told Shelly that she hopes her daughter returns to the United States and that she has made up her bedroom.

The AP story also said two officials within the militia, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, told AP that in exchange for freeing Kittleson, several members of the group who had previously been detained by Iraqi authorities would be released. Kittleson’s mother said she does not know how much U.S. officials want her to say, and she said she is also unsure whether her daughter received her message.

Barb Kittleson said she has not seen her daughter since 2002, when she visited her while touring Italy. She said her husband, Bob, died of pancreatic cancer in 2024, and she nodded when asked if she misses Shelly. She also said she does not know whether Kittleson’s captors took her phone and computer.

AP reported that Katib Hezbollah has been accused of kidnapping other foreigners. The AP story cited the case of Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton graduate student with Israeli and Russian citizenship, who disappeared in Baghdad in 2023 and later was freed and handed over to U.S. authorities in September 2025; Tsurkov said she had been held by Kataib Hezbollah, which never officially claimed responsibility.

The release comes as Iran-backed militias in Iraq have launched regular attacks on U.S. facilities in the country since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, according to the AP report.