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US teen on way home from Baghdad
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-31 08:55
A 16-year-old from Florida, the United States, who traveled to one of
the world's most dangerous places without telling his parents left Baghdad on
Friday to begin his journey home, the U.S. Embassy said, drawing to a close an
adventure that could have cost him his life.
The mother of Farris Hassan, the prep school junior whom U.S. officials took
custody of in Baghdad this week, said she was "grateful" he was headed back.
Shatha Atiya said she already knew what her first words would be to her son.
"'Thank God you're alive,' then I'll collapse for a few hours and then sit
down and have a long discussion about his consequences," she said in Fort
Lauderdale.
Shatha Atiya displays photos, of her
16-year-old son, Farris Hassan, who traveled to Iraq during the Christmas
holidays, in her Fort Lauderdale, Fla. home Friday, Dec. 30, 2005.
[AP] | Consul General Richard B. Hermann said
Friday that Hassan "safely departed Baghdad." He reiterated warnings by the
State Department and embassy against traveling to Iraq. Forty American citizens
have been kidnapped since the war started in March 2003, of whom 10 have been
killed, a U.S. official said. About 15 remain missing.
"This young American is now on his way back home to his family in the United
States," Hermann said.
Hassan spoke to The Associated Press early Friday, several hours before the
embassy announcement, and he was still under the impression that he would be
following his personal travel itinerary, which had him leaving the country by
himself on Sunday.
He hadn't even been aware that the story of his perilous travels was
published around the world �� or that his mother was being interviewed on
television.
"I don't have any Internet access here in the Green Zone, so I have no idea
what's going on," he said.
A military officer accompanying him, who did not identify himself, said it
was his task to get Hassan "safe and sound to the United States."
The embassy refused to release any further details about his travel, and it
wasn't known when he would arrive home in Florida.
Hassan has three older siblings who are all enrolled at universities. A
brother, 23-year-old Hayder Hassan, called the trip "absolutely mind-boggling."
"I just want him back," he said.
Farris Hassan, who attends Pine Crest School, an academy of about 700
students in Fort Lauderdale, left the United States on Dec. 11 and traveled to
Kuwait, where he thought he could take a taxi into Baghdad and witness the Dec.
15 parliamentary elections.
A strong history student, Hassan had recently studied immersion journalism ��
a writer who lives the life of his subject �� and wanted to understand better
what Iraqis are living through.
"I thought I'd go the extra mile for that, or rather, a
few thousand miles," he told AP in an interview earlier this week.
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