Farris Hassan poses for a portrait at a hotel, backdropped by the Ramadan 14th mosque in Baghdad

U.S. embassy officials in Iraq say an American teen who skipped school and flew to Baghdad without his parents' permission is on his way home.

In a brief statement Friday, the U.S. consul-general in Baghdad announced that 16-year-old Farris Hassan has left Iraq.

The boy, of Iraqi descent, says he went to the war-torn country to pursue his interest in news reporting, cultivated in a high school journalism class.

The student from Florida bought a plane ticket and left the United States on December 11, arriving in Kuwait, where he called his parents. He later flew to Iraq on a flight from Lebanon.

Earlier this week, the boy entered the Iraqi offices of the Associated Press news agency. Journalists immediately called the U.S. embassy, where officials had been looking for the teen, at his parents' request.

Some information for this report provided by AP.