Turkey allegedly arrested a woman from the killed chief of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist militia, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. "We picked up his wife, I'm saying it for the first time today, but we're not bragging about it," said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, without mentioning the location and time of the arrest. He also confirmed that a sister of Baghdadi and her husband had been arrested on Tuesday.
In a televised speech, Erdogan emphasized that his country did not want to "brag" about the arrests. The US, by contrast, had launched "a massive communication campaign" following the killing of Baghdadis by US forces, he said.
US President Donald Trump announced the death of Baghdadi on 27 October. A special command of the US security forces had accordingly cornered the IS leader near the village of Barischa in northwestern Syria until he detonated an explosives vest in a tunnel. Three weeks after the announced withdrawal of US troops from Syria, there are still nearly a thousand US soldiers in action. The IS later confirmed the death of the leader and named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Kuraishi as his successor.
Baghdadi had at least two wives. According to Will McCants, a long-time IS researcher, the first wife, Asma, was the daughter of his maternal uncle, the jihadist's cousin. According to McCants, his second wife, Isra, probably married Baghdadi after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In the video: Aerial photos of the action against the terrorist leader
Department of Defense / AP
The New York Times, reporting to US officials at the end of October, reported that one of Baghdadi's women had been arrested and interrogated before the secret mission that led to his death. She had given hints to Baghdadi's location in northern Syria. Which woman it was, remained unclear.2