This archive report was first published on 5 November 2019.
Published on November 5, 2019, a senior Turkish official announced that Turkey had captured the older sister of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State who died in an American raid in northwestern Syria a week ago.
Rasmiya Awad, 65, was detained in the town of Azaz, where she was living with her husband and family members. The capture of such a close relative, affiliated with the Islamic State movement, might yield a trove of intelligence information, the official said.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had become intensely security conscious in the years since he declared a caliphate in 2014. He trusted only his family and a close circle of associates, according to women who were held by him as sex slaves, as well as several senior aides interviewed after their capture in prison in Iraq.
Colin P. Clarke, a senior fellow at the Soufan Center, cautioned against expecting to learn too much from Ms. Awad’s capture, but said it could prove valuable. “‘Gold mine’ might be overstating the issue,” he said, “but depending on how much time she spent around Baghdadi, it could be significant.”
