MIAMI, Jan 1: A teenage US high school student, Farris Hassan, began the first leg of his long journey home to the United States on Friday after travelling secretly to Iraq alone to seek first-hand knowledge of the country. The 16-year-old school boy and his audacious trip to Iraq, which Hassan has said was sparked by a school project, have caused a media frenzy in the United States with major news networks competing to interview his family over the affair.

His trip is all the more incredible as Farris Hassan, whose parents are of Iraqi descent, speaks no Arabic and yet managed to reach Baghdad where he walked into the bureaux of the US news organization, the Associated Press.

The US military confirmed that Hassan had left Baghdad on Friday, but his family are not sure when their globe-trotting son will arrive home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

“I’m astonished no one has contacted me directly with this information,” his mother, Shatha Atiya, said.

“But as long as he comes home safe, I’ll be happy,” she added.

Her son was somehow able to secure a visa and depart the United States on Dec 11 bound for Iraq without his parents’ knowledge. He flew to Kuwait and then travelled to Lebanon before entering Iraq.

Hassan had been studying the Iraq conflict in a school journalism class and wanted to experience the country first-hand.

Hassan’s sister, Shanaz, told CNN her little brother was in Kuwait en route to Florida as the family home remained under siege from reporters.

“It’s unbelievable how this is happening. I’m just wondering, does he know the uproar he’s caused,” Hayder Hassan, an older brother, said.

Classmates at Hassan’s Pine Crest school at first did not believe their friend had travelled to Iraq alone. “We all thought it was a huge rumour,” said Anjali Sharma. —AFP