Four German women could face death penalty for joining ISIS
At least 18 foreigners arrested by Iraqi authorities on suspicion of fighting for ISIS could face the death penalty, Iraqi officials said Saturday.
They’re among 26 non-Iraqis placed into custody since “terrorists were cleared” from the northern city of Mosul after it was retaken from ISIS last month.
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The group includes a 16-year-old girl from Germany who ran away to marry a Muslim Arab ISIS member she met on social media
Other prisoners include women from France, Belgium, Germany, Russia, Iran, Syria, Turkey and possibly Canada; two Chechen men and eight children.
The kids will be sent back to the countries they came from.
Many of the women — who are being held in a jail near the Baghdad airport — were taken into custody after barricading themselves in a tunnel underneath the ruins of Mosul.
All were armed with weapons and explosive belts when they were busted.
The fate of their husbands, all ISIS fighters, is unclear.
German diplomats have visited Linda Wenzel, the runaway teen, and four other German females.
French women at the prison were likewise visited by officials from their embassy.
Officials in Baghdad said several of the women, including Wenzel, had been working with ISIS police in Mosul.
Some reports said Wenzel had been acting as an ISIS sniper.
The women will likely be tried on charges of terrorism and face capital punishment under Iraqi law.
A test case could be brought against a French woman captured July 9 in Mosul along with her two sons and two daughters.
She and her children had been found hiding in a basement.
Some of the children in custody may be teenagers who, like Wenzel, were targeted by ISIS recruiters online.
Wenzel’s future is unclear — she might be tried, or handed over to Germany, because she is a minor who had been reported missing.
Hundreds of people have left Western European countries to make their way to ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Many of them were radicalized on social media, often through videos posted online.
German prosecutors filed charges against the suspected leader of ISIS in that country, Abu Walaa, and four of his associates last week.
Walaa is known as the “preacher without a face” because he wears black robes that hide his features from the camera in his videos.
Germany estimates that about 20 percent of the would-be jihadists from that country are women. Minors account for about 5 percent of the total, about half of them girls.
While some have been killed in battle and suicide bombings, and others have returned home, a large number are unaccounted for.