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| Iraq |
| U.S. transfers widow of top ISIS figure to Iraq |
| 2015-08-08 |
| [ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The United States on Thursday handed over to Iraqi authorities the widow of a senior ISIS leader who were tossed into the calaboose by US forces since May, the Pentagon announced. Nasrin As'ad Ibrahim, also known as Umm Sayyaf or "Mother of Sayyaf", was the wife of Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... or "Father of Sayyaf," who was killed in a U.S. special forces raid in Syria in May. She is now being held by the interior ministry of Iraq's autonomous province of Kurdistan, the U.S. Defense Department said. "The decision to transfer Umm Sayyaf to the Iraqi government was based on the U.S. government determination that the detainee's transfer would be appropriate with respect to legal, diplomatic, intelligence, security, and law enforcement considerations," it said in a statement. Abu Sayyaf, who was alleged to be the faceless myrmidons group's top financier, was killed on May 15 in a rare U.S. commando raid on the town of Al-Omar inside war-torn Syria. The Pentagon said that "about a dozen" ISIS fighters had been slain in a close quarters shootout during the raid. At the time, U.S. officials said the plan had been to detain both Abu Sayyaf and his wife, but the Death Eater leader had resisted arrest and had been killed in an exchange of fire. U.S. and Iraqi officials said a young Yezidi woman held as a slave by the couple had been freed after the raid, and that U.S. forces had found valuable looted Iraqi historical artifacts at their home. The legal status of the captive Umm Sayyaf was unclear after the raid, but U.S. officials have alleged that she was a member of the ISIS group in her own right. The United States has no relationship with Bashir al-Assad's Syrian government, but is an ally of the Kurdistan Regional Government and cooperates with Iraq in its fight against the ISIS organization. |
| Posted by:Fred |