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Erdoğan says Turkey captured wife of dead ISIL leader al-Baghdadi

An image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube on August 23, 2013 allegedly shows a member of Ussud Al-Anbar (Anbar Lions), a Jihadist group affiliated to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Al-Qaeda's front group in Iraq, holding up the trademark black and white Islamist flag at an undisclosed location in Iraq's Anbar province. Attacks in Iraq killed 14 people including six soldiers on August 25, Iraqi officials said, amid a surge in violence authorities have so far failed to stem despite wide-ranging operations targeting militants. Arabic writing on the flag reads: "There is not God but God and Mohammed is the prophet of God." AFP PHOTO

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced that Turkish forces captured the wife of former Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was recently killed in a raid by US special forces, in an operation in Syria, according to Turkish media reports.

“The US killed al-Baghdadi in a tunnel. I am revealing this information for the first time: We captured al-Baghdadi’s wife but did not make a fuss about it. Likewise, we captured his sister and brother-in-law in Syria,” Erdoğan said during a ceremony at Ankara University in the Turkish capital.

Baghdadi killed himself last month when cornered in a tunnel during a raid by US special forces in northwestern Syria. ISIL, in an audiotape posted online later, confirmed that its leader had died and vowed revenge against the United States.

US President Donald Trump announced that al-Baghdadi had been killed in a late-night raid in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province.

Baghdadi’s sister, Rasmiya Awad, 65, her husband and daughter-in-law were detained in a raid near Azaz, a Turkish-controlled Syrian town near the border on Nov. 4 and subsequently arrested.

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