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Wife and child of Islamic State leader Baghdadi arrested in Lebanon Wife and child of Islamic State leader Baghdadi held in Lebanon
(about 2 hours later)
The Lebanese army detained a wife and daughter of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State (Isis), as they crossed from Syria nine days ago, security officials have said. The Lebanese army says it has detained the second wife of the Islamic State (Isis) leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and their eight-year-old son near the Syrian border.
The woman was identified as Saja al-Dulaimi, an Iraqi, by a Lebanese security official and a senior political source. The arrest reportedly took place in the past week and followed information provided by western intelligence agencies in the past fortnight.
The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported she had been detained in coordination with “foreign intelligence”. Lebanese security officials described the woman as a “high-value catch” and said the identity of the boy was confirmed through DNA testing. If so, the revelation would support the claim of international involvement. The US and other states have samples of Baghdadi’s DNA from the nine months he spent in US custody in Iraq in 2004.
The arrest is a blow to Baghdadi and could be used as a bargaining chip against his group, which has captured many foreign, Iraqi and Syrian prisoners and declared a caliphate in territory it has seized in Syria and Iraq. The Foreign Office said it had nothing to add to the reports.
A senior Lebanese security official said Baghdadi’s wife had been travelling with one of their daughters, contradicting earlier reports that it was his son. DNA tests were conducted to verify it was Baghdadi’s child, the official said. Analysts in Iraq said that, if true, the arrest would not necessarily yield useful intelligence. The self-styled leader of the new Islamic caliphate, which covers part of eastern Syria and Iraq, operates in an exclusively male world where women are rarely empowered. Baghdadi is believed to have three wives, two of them Iraqi and one Syrian.
They were detained in northern Lebanon. Investigators were questioning her at the Lebanese defence ministry. There was no immediate reaction from Islamic State websites. “It is close to impossible that she would have operational details,” said an Iraqi intelligence officer. “But she could still be useful on things like locations.”
Dulaimi was one of 150 women released from a Syrian government jail in March as part of a prisoner swap that led to the release of 13 nuns taken captive by al-Qaida-linked militants in Syria, according to media reports at the time. Baghdadi is known to move frequently across Iraq’s north-west, where he has been the target of an intensive technical effort to track him by the US National Security Agency and Britain’s GCHQ. He uses trusted couriers to pass vital information, often in written letters, or repeated orally. The FBI has put a $10m bounty on Baghdadi’s head.
A source with contacts with Iraqi intelligence said the captured woman was an Iraqi wife of Baghdadi’s, but could not confirm the name. There was cooperation between Iraqi and Lebanese authorities leading up to her capture, the source said. The Lebanese news magazine al-Safir, which first reported the arrest, said the woman and her son were arrested near the restive border town of Arsal and were being detained at Lebanon’s military headquarters in the hills overlooking Beirut.
Baghdadi has three wives, two Iraqis and one Syrian, according to tribal sources in Iraq. The woman was identified as Saja al-Dulaimi, an Iraqi, by a Lebanese security official and a senior political source. Dulaimi was one of 150 women released from a Syrian government jail in March as part of a prisoner swap that led to the release of 13 nuns taken captive by al-Qaida-linked militants in Syria, according to media reports at the time.
Islamic State has seized wide areas of Iraq and Syria, Lebanon’s neighbour to the east. The arrest could be used as a bargaining chip against Isis, which has captured many foreign, Iraqi and Syrian prisoners. There was no immediate reaction from Isis websites.
The Lebanese security forces have cracked down on the group’s sympathisers and the intelligence services have been extra vigilant on the borders with Syria. Isis continues to pose a mortal threat to Iraq’s central government and to both the opposition and regime in Syria where a devastating civil war is nearing its fourth year. The Iraqi and Syrian militaries have tried to mount counteroffensives against the group in past weeks, with mixed success. However, neither they nor US-led air strikes have wound back the spectacular gains the group enjoyed from June to August when it rampaged through northern Iraq as the Iraqi army withdrew.
Over the past few months they have arrested dozens of militants suspected of staging attacks to expand Isis influence in Lebanon.
A US-led alliance is seeking to roll back Isis’s territorial gains in Iraq and Syria. Barack Obama has vowed to “degrade and ultimately destroy” Baghdadi’s group, which is seeking to reshape the Middle East according to its radical vision of Islam.
Spillover from the Syrian conflict has repeatedly jolted neighbouring Lebanon. Militants affiliated to the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and Islamic State are demanding the release of Islamists held by the Lebanese authorities in exchange for 27 members of the Lebanese security forces taken captive in August.
Isis includes thousands of foreign fighters and its leadership draws from militants with combat experience in Iraq.
The United States is offering $10 million for information leading to the location, arrest, or conviction of Baghdadi, an Iraqi.
Baghdadi called for attacks against the rulers of Saudi Arabia in a speech purported to be in his name last month.
He said his self-declared caliphate was expanding in Saudi Arabia and four other Arab countries and called for “volcanoes of jihad” the world over in the speech released on 13 November.