IS on alert after one of Baghdadi’s wives arrested in Salahuddin
Representational photo.
Shirqat (IraqiNews.com) Islamic State members in Salahuddin were put on a high alert on Tuesday after a woman believed to be one of the group’s supreme leader’s wives was captured.
A local source told Alsumaria News that IS fighters in the western side of the city of Shirqat were put on high alert and reinforced their deployment in the city after a woman with twin children, who claimed to be the wife of IS supreme leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was captured there.
The incident, according to the source, prompted her captors to contact higher ranking leaders. “Senior leaders outside Shirqat returned to the city on hearing the news,” the source added.
Islamic State members have been in control over western Shirqat since the group emerged in 2014 to proclaim a self-styled “caliphate”.
Baghdadi’s only appearance was in a film clip showing him delivering a sermon in which he proclaimed the establishment of an Islamist “caliphate” in the Old City’s Grand Nuri Mosque in June 2014, and never showed up again. Speculations and clashing reports about his whereabouts and survival have been plenteous. Russia said last month it was 100 percent sure of his death.
An interview run by Arabic satellite channel Alaan on Monday with fugitive wives of IS members in Syria’s Raqqa revealed that Baghdadi maintained four wives in addition to at least 14 sex slaves.