October 2, 2026
The Wall Street Journal’s reporting team received security warnings over potential threats from an armed faction while in Baghdad to cover the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
Wall Street Journal correspondent Jared Malsin said in posts published on X that he shortened his trip to the Iraqi capital to just two days after receiving security warnings from Iraqi officials.
Malsin added that he later received another warning from U.S. and European officials, who subsequently informed him that the alert was linked to kidnapping threats allegedly posed by an armed faction. He did not identify the faction.
The Wall Street Journal correspondent also noted that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issues repeated warnings to American citizens and others regarding kidnapping threats, at a rate of approximately two warnings per week.
The Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq (PFaa) expresses its concern over the serious threats targeting the Wall Street Journal team and warns of the continued use of threats and intimidation against foreign journalists while working in Iraq.
The Association stresses the need to ensure a safe and stable environment for journalists to carry out their work. It also calls on the Iraqi security forces to assume their responsibility for protecting foreign media personnel visiting Iraq and to ensure that incidents such as the one involving American journalist Shelly Kittleson are not repeated.
