Turkey said it has captured the older sister of the slain ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in northwestern Syria, terming the arrest an intelligence “gold mine.”
A Turkish official said that the 65-year-old known as Rasmiya Awad was captured in a raid on November 4 on a trailer container she was living in with her family near the town of Azaz.
The official said the sister was with her husband, daughter-in-law and five children. The adults are being interrogated, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government protocol.
Al-Baghdadi was killed in a US raid in the nearby province of Idlib last month.
In a weekend raid by US forces in Syria, Baghdadi was chased to a dead-end tunnel along with three children and he was left with no option but to blow up his suicide vest.
The feared terrorist leader died like a coward, “whimpering and crying” when cornered in a dead-end tunnel by US Special Forces in Syria, and will “never again harm an innocent man, woman or child”, said US President Donald Trump.
The ISIS chief, who is said to be 48 years old, was eliminated by the US Special Operations forces.
“He (Baghdadi) reached the end of the tunnel, as our dogs chased him down. He died in his vest, killing himself. And the three children. His body was mutilated by the blast. The tunnel had caved in on it, in addition,” Trump said in a televised address to the nation.
Baghdadi’s was buried at the sea by the US military, a Pentagon source told AFP on Monday.
No details were given on where or when the body was disposed of, but it paralleled the 2011 sea burial of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after he was killed in a US special forces raid in Pakistan.
“The disposal of his remains has been done, is complete and was handled appropriately,” said General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.