ISIS Leader’s Wife Charged With Murder

The widow of an influential ISIS leader has been charged in a federal court with holding American human rights activist and humanitarian aid worker Kayla Mueller hostage and with contributing to her death, the Justice Department said Monday, 8th February.

The 25 year old woman whose name has been said to be Umm Sayyaf, also known as Nasrin As'ad Ibrahim, was captured by U.S. forces in a raid in Deir Ezzor, Syria, in May, 2015. Her husband, the ISIS leader, Abu Sayyaf, was killed in the same raid. She was charged with "conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death," the Justice Department announced.

Kayla started working in southern Turkey in December 2012, where she was assisting Syrian refugees. She was taken captive in August 2013 in Aleppo, Syria, while leaving a ‘Doctors Without Borders’ hospital. 

The woman admitted after capturing Kayla last May that she and her husband kept Mueller captive along with several other young female hostages, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case. U.S. officials have said that while in custody, Mueller was repeatedly forced to have sex with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group. Sayyaf was aware of how Mueller was sexually abused by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi while she was in captivity inside the Sayyafs' home, the Justice Department documents said. U.S. government officials and Mueller's family had been previously aware of how Mueller was treated by the ISIS when she was held captive by them. According to the documents released Monday, Sayaff admitted Baghdadi "owned" Mueller during her captivity at the Sayyaf residence.

Mueller was killed in February 2015. At the time, ISIS said she was killed by a coalition strike. The United States confirmed her death but denied it was by a coalition strike. "We fully support the Iraqi prosecution of Sayyaf and will continue to work with the authorities there to pursue our shared goal of holding Sayyaf accountable for her crimes. At the same time, these charges reflect that the U.S. justice system remains a powerful tool to bring to bear against those who harm our citizens abroad," said Assistant Attorney General John Carlin in a statement Monday.

ISIS, which stands for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, alternatively translated as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, is a Salafi jihadist militant group, which has been active since 1999, is in today’s world, the biggest enemy to humanity according to United Nations, European Union and 60 other countries.