Islamic Leader’s Wife Arrested At Border

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s wife and one of his sons have been arrested at the Syrian border, say reports.
They were detained by Lebanese troops in coordination with "foreign intelligence apparatus", according to local media.

His wife is said to have been travelling with a fake passport, and she is being questioned at the headquarters of the Lebanese defence ministry.

The country's security forces have launched a crackdown against IS sympathisers in Lebanon and the intelligence services have been extra vigilant at border crossings.They have arrested over the past few months a number of Islamic militants suspected of staging attacks to expand IS in the country neighbouring Syria.

Since taking the reins of the terror group in 2010, Baghdadi has transformed it from a local branch of al Qaeda into an independent transnational military force.He has succeeded in exploiting turmoil in Syria and Iraq's weak central authority after the US military withdrawal to carve out his powerbase.  In doing so he has positioned himself as a leading figure in the global jihadi community.

A US-led coalition has been seeking to roll back IS territorial gains in Iraq and Syria by launching airstrikes. President Barack Obama has pledged to "degrade and ultimately destroy" the group. The strikes are part of an effort to give Iraqi forces the time and space to mount a more effective offensive.

Baghdadi, who has a $10m (£5.9m) US bounty on his head, has called for "volcanoes of jihad" around the world.

According to the reward notice, he was born in the Iraqi town of Samarra in 1971.

 

Skynews