Kosovo frees 8-year-old from Syria captivity

SLATINA, Kosovo (AP) — An 8-year-old boy from Kosovo was reunited with his mother late on Wednesday after intelligence and security forces brought him back from Syria where he was taken by his jihadi father and kept for 5 months, officials said.

Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said in a statement that Kosovo's Intelligence Agency "successfully located, found and returned" Erion Zena to Kosovo. He said the operation was "complicated and dangerous," but didn't give any further details. It was authorized by Thaci and the country's President Atifete Jahjaga.

An Associated Press reporter witnessed when the boy was ushered into a waiting room at Pristina's international airport by two men in civilian clothes where his mother Pranvera Zena waited.

Pranvera Abazi kisses her son Erion Zena during their reunion at Kosovo's main airport upon his return to Kosovo's capital Pristina on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014. Kosovo's Prime Minister says the country's intelligence and security forces have returned an 8-year-old ethnic Albanian boy to his mother in Kosovo after he was taken by his jihadi father to Syria. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)

"It feels like a dream," Pranvera Zena told the AP minutes after the reunion. "It feels as if I am waking up and I fear he's still not there."

The boy appeared confused as his mother approached him and hugged him. He then sat on her lap and showed her his toy soldiers and a toy tank, as she caressed him and tried to hold back her tears.

The boy was taken to Syria in June 2014 by his father Arben Zena against his mother's will. The case received wide attention in Kosovo after the boy's mother made a public appeal to her husband to return her son. A Facebook page was also opened in support of Pranvera Zena and she made appearances in Kosovo and Albania from where a growing number of youths have joined Islamic radicals in Iraq and Syria.

Hundreds of Kosovo Albanians have joined the ranks of Islamic militants in Syria and Iraq in recent years.

Kosovo is secular but its population of some 1.8 million is overwhelmingly Muslim.

Pranvera Abazi kisses her son Erion Zena during their reunion at Kosovo's main airport upon his return to Kosovo's capital Pristina on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014. Kosovo's Prime Minister says the country's intelligence and security forces have returned an 8-year-old ethnic Albanian boy to his mother in Kosovo after he was taken by his jihadi father to Syria. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)

Erion Zena an 8 year old boy looks at his mother Pranvera Abazi during their reunion at Kosovo's main airport upon his return to Kosovo's capital Pristina on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014. Kosovo's Prime Minister says the country's intelligence and security forces have returned an 8-year-old ethnic Albanian boy to his mother in Kosovo after he was taken by his jihadi father to Syria. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)