Turkey says it has captured the sister of dead IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Turkey says it has captured the sister of dead IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Copyright Reuters
By Euronews with Reuters
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Turkish officals say they have captured the sister of dead Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the northern Syrian town of Azaz.

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Turkey has captured the sister of dead Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the northern Syrian town of Azaz, a senior Turkish official has told Reuters.

Rasmiya Awad, 65, was detained in a raid near Azaz, the official said, referring to a Turkish-controlled Syrian town near the border. When captured, she was also accompanied by five children.

Her husband and daughter-in-law were also arrested in the same operation, and are being interrogated.

"We hope to gather a trove of intelligence from Baghdadi’s sister on the inner workings of ISIS," the official said.

Little independent information is available on Baghdadi's sister and Reuters was not immediately able to verify if the captured individual was her.

Baghdadi killed himself last month when cornered in a tunnel during a raid by US special forces in northwestern Syria.

Islamic State, in an audio tape posted online on Thursday, confirmed that its leader had died and vowed revenge against the United States.

Baghdadi had risen from obscurity to lead the ultra-hardline group and declare himself "caliph" of all Muslims, holding sway over huge areas of Iraq and Syria from 2014-2017, before Islamic State's control was wrested away by U.S.-led coalition forces including Iraqis and Syrian Kurds.

The group, also known as ISIS, said a successor to Baghdadi identified as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi had been appointed.

A senior U.S. official last week said Washington was looking at the new leader to determine where he came from.

World leaders welcomed his death, but they and security experts warned that the group, which carried out atrocities against religious minorities and horrified most Muslims, remained a security threat in Syria and beyond.

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