Lebanon Detains ISIL Group Leader’s Wife, Son
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Lebanon’s army detained Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s wife and one of his sons, Lebanese security officials said on Tuesday.
The pair were detained as they attempted to cross the border from Syria.
The officials declined to give the name or nationality of the woman, whom they described as one of Baghdadi’s wives.
The army detained her in coordination with “foreign intelligence apparatus,” Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported. It said that she had been travelling with a fake passport, accompanied by one of her sons.
Investigators were questioning her at the headquarters of the Lebanese defence ministry, according to As-Safir.
Baghdadi, an Iraqi national believed to be in his early 40s, took control of the ISIL in 2010. Since then he has transformed it from a local al Qaeda offshoot into an independent, transnational militant force.
Over the past months, the ISIL group has seized huge swaths of territory in both Iraq and Syria, declaring a caliphate, or the establishment of a state, in the two countries. On November 13, Baghdadi extended the caliphate to include Saudi Arabia and four other Arab countries.
Seeking to weaken the ISIL group, a US-led coalition has carried out ongoing airstrikes targeting strategic positions in Syria and Iraq. US President Barack Obama has also vowed to “degrade and ultimately destroy” Baghdadi’s group, which is seeking to reshape the Middle East according to its radical vision.
In Lebanon, security forces have waged a crackdown on ISIL group sympathisers and intelligence services have been extra vigilant on the border crossings, France24 reported.
