ERBIL // Iraqi Kurdish forces have rescued a 16-year-old Swedish girl who was tricked into travelling to areas controlled by ISIL, the Kurdish government said on Tuesday.
Kurdish counter-terrorism forces rescued the girl near Mosul, the extremist organisation's main hub in Iraq, the statement from the Kurdistan Regional Security Council (KRSC) said.
The regional government said the rescue operation took place on February 17 near Mosul, 360 kilometres northwest of Baghdad.
It identified the teenager by name, saying she was from the Swedish town of Boras who "was misled" by an ISIL member in Sweden to travel to Syria and later to Mosul.
Swedish authorities and the teenager's family had contacted the Iraqi Kurdish government and asked for help in locating and rescuing the girl from the ISIL, the government said.
The young woman is currently in Iraqi Kurdish territory and is being "provided the care afforded to her under international law", the statement said, adding that she will be "transferred to Swedish authorities to return home once necessary arrangements" are made.
There were no details on the rescue operation and it did not say whether the teen was mistreated while with ISIL.
Iraqi Kurdish officials contacted in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq, declined to provide more details on the case.
Iraq's second-largest city of Mosul was the first major city to fall into the hands of ISIL militants during their blitz in June 2014, when the group swept across vast areas in the country's north and west.
Mosul remains under control of ISIL today.
Iraqi forces - aided by air strikes carried out by the US-led international coalition - are battling alongside Shiite militiamen and Sunni pro-government fighters, to reclaim ground lost to the militants. Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces are fighting ISIL militants to the north and east of the city.
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
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