Professor of analytical chemistry at Sweden’s Lund University Charlotta Turner hired a heavily-armed mercenary squad to rescue one of her students who had been caught in an ISIS war zone.
A student, Firas Jumaah, was completing his doctorate under Turner in 2014 when he received word that ISIS had begun capturing villages where his family resided in northern Iraq.
According to Lund’s University Magazine LUM, Jumaah flew home immediately to protect his wife and children and hopefully save them from the murderous ISIS thugs. Jumaah reunited with his family and moved them to a hideout in the region attempting to evade ISIS capture.
A member of the Syrian pro-government forces carries an Islamic State (IS) group flag as he stands on a street in the ancient city of Palmyra on March 27, 2016, after troops recaptured the city from IS jihadists. / AFP / STR
Iraqi Federal Police officers hold up a captured ISIS flag next to a dead Islamic fighter in the ISIS held village of Abu Saif, 6 kilometres from Mosul on February 22, 2017 in Nineveh, northern Iraq. (Martyn Aim/Getty Images)
Jumaah contacted Turner from the bunker letting her know of his precarious state with his family.
Turner sprung into action and contacted a local security officer on her campus. What happened next is extraordinary. According to the Military Times:
The two university employees collaborated to hire a mercenary team from a security company that put the rescue mission together in less than a week.
“It was almost as if [Gustafson had] been waiting for this kind of mission,” Turner said.
In a matter of days, four mercenaries — armed to the teeth — rolled up to the bleach factory, loaded Jumaah and his family into the vehicles and hightailed it to Erbil Airport, approximately 55 miles east of Mosul.
“I have never felt so privileged, so VIP,” Jumaah told LUM.
“What was happening was completely unacceptable. I got so angry that IS was pushing itself into our world, exposing my doctoral student and his family to this, and disrupting the research,” Turner told the school magazine. (Related: Trump: ‘Mission Accomplished’ In Syria Strikes)
Jumaah is currently finishing his doctorate with his wife and children safe out of ISIS hands thanks to one brave professor.
President Trump declared victory over ISIS Wednesday and has begun withdrawing troops from the region.