baghdadi’s sister captured in a raid, says Turkey
ISTANBUL: Turkish forces in northern Syria have detained a sister of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group who was killed in a US raid, a senior Turkish official said.
“Turkey has captured Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s sister” in a raid near the town of Azaz, said the official yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
He named the woman as Rasmiya Awad, and said she was born in 1954.
The woman was accompanied by her husband, her daughter-in-law and five children.
“The three adults are being interrogated at this time”, the official said.
He added that the arrest could be “an intelligence gold mine”.
“What she knows about Isis can significantly expand our understanding of the group”, help us catch more members and “help Turkey to better protect itself and the rest of Europe from terrorists”, he said, using another acronym for IS.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the arrests.
“Turkish forces arrested the sister of Baghdadi last night in a camp in the suburbs of the city of Azaz”, said the head of the organisation, Rami Abdel Rahman.
“They arrested her, her husband, her daughter-in law, and her five grandchildren.”
He said they also detained four other Iraqis, but it was not immediately clear if they were linked to IS or not.
The town of Azaz is located in a region of northwestern Syria that has been under Turkish control since an offensive that it staged in 2016.
US President Donald Trump announced on Oct 27 the death of Baghdadi in a US special forces raid in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, carried out in coordination with Kurdish militants.
Baghdadi, an Iraqi militant who rose from obscurity to declare himself “caliph” of all Muslims as the leader of IS, died by detonating a suicide vest as he fled into a deadend tunnel as elite US special forces closed in.
The next day Turkey said that its intelligence services and military had had “intense” contact with their US counterparts on the night of the operation.
Long suspected of allowing the extremist to cross its border to join Syria after the start of the conflict that has torn the country since 2011, Turkey, hit by several attacks committed by the IS, joined the anti-extremist coalition in 2015.
But Ankara has been accused in recent weeks of weakening the fight against dispersed IS elements by launching an offensive on Oct 9 against the YPG Kurdish militia that had been spearheading the fight against the extremists organisation.