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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Sean Morrison

Sister of killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi 'captured alive in Syria'

A file image purporting to show Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Picture: AP)

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s sister has reportedly been captured alive in Syria, where the ISIS leader died in a raid last month.

Turkish officials said Rasmiya Awad, 65, was detained in a raid in a Turkish-controlled Syrian town near the border on Monday.

It comes after Baghdadi killed himself last month when cornered in a tunnel during a raid by US Special Forces in north-west Syria.

A Turkish official said Awad has now been captured and she is being interrogated along with her husband and daughter-in-law, who were also detained.

Raid: the site in Syria that was hit by helicopter gunfire during the raid that killed Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (AFP via Getty Images)

"We hope to gather a trove of intelligence from Baghdadi’s sister on the inner workings of ISIS," the official said.

Little independent information is available on Baghdadi's sister and the Standard was not immediately able to verify if the captured individual was her.

Her brother Baghdadi died in a US raid in the nearby province of Idlib last month.

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Islamic State, in an audio tape posted online on Thursday, confirmed that its leader had died and vowed revenge against the United States.

The group, also known as ISIS, said a successor to Baghdadi identified as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi had been appointed.

A senior US official last week said Washington was looking at the new leader to determine where he came from.

World leaders welcomed Baghdadi’s death, but they and security experts warned that the group remained a security threat in Syria and elsewhere.

Agencies contributed to this report

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