Wife of slain IS leader captured

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey has captured a wife of the slain leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday.

Erdogan did not say when or how the woman was captured or identify her by name.

Al-Baghdadi was known to have four wives, the maximum at one time permitted under Islamic law.

“We caught his wife, but we didn’t make a fuss about it,” Erdogan said, while criticizing the United States for leading a “communications campaign” about Baghdadi’s slaying.

The IS leader blew himself up during an Oct. 26 raid by U.S. special forces on his fortified safe house in the Syrian province of Idlib.

Erdogan’s announcement comes just days after Turkish forces captured alBaghdadi’s elder sister, Rasmiya Awad, in the town of Azaz in northwest Syria’s Aleppo Province. Turkey seized on both incidents to highlight what it says is its fight against the IS group, in the face of accusations that the Turkish military offensive last month to drive Syrian Kurdish fighters from northeast Syria would allow a resurgence of the militant Islamic group.

Azaz is in a region administered by Turkey following military incursions to chase away IS militants and Kurdish fighters, starting in 2016. Allied Syrian groups manage the area known as the Euphrates Shield zone.

Awad was with her husband, daughter-in-law and five children when she was detained. A Turkish official said the 65-year-old sister is suspected of being affiliated with the extremist group and called her capture an intelligence “gold mine.”