16-year-old runaway German girl detained in Iraq, suspected of ISIS links

16-year-old runaway German girl detained in Iraq, suspected of ISIS links
By Rudaw 12 hours ago
Destroyed buildings are framed by the window of a damaged hotel on the west side of Mosul, Iraq on July 11, 2017. Iraqi Security Forces liberated the city from ISIS after a nine-months battle in July. Photo: AP /Felipe Dana
Destroyed buildings are framed by the window of a damaged hotel on the west side of Mosul, Iraq on July 11, 2017. Iraqi Security Forces liberated the city from ISIS after a nine-months battle in July. Photo: AP /Felipe Dana

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A German girl who ran away last year from her home shortly after she converted to Islam has been found in Iraq, German prosecutors said Saturday.

The girl named only as Linda W. for privacy reasons, is currently getting consular assistance from the German embassy in Iraq, Prosecutor Lorenz Haase from the eastern German city of Dresden said.

The German prosecutor could not confirm whether Linda W. had been fighting for ISIS in Mosul, the Associated Press reported.

"Our information ends with the girl's arrival in Istanbul about a year ago," he told the AP, as he added that further details about her whereabouts in the last year were part of an investigation.

The 16-years-old girl is from Pulsnitz in eastern Germany.

Iraqi security forces detained a number of female ISIS fighters earlier this month. Haase couldn't confirm whether Linda W. was one of them.

Earlier this week a photo of a woman who was caught by Iraqi security forces in Mosul went viral. It was first speculated that she was Russian, then a Yezidi girl, and finally German.

German media reported that there were five German nationals among a group of 20 ISIS female militants found in a tunnel in Mosul as the Iraqi forces liberated the city, German DW reported.

DW quoted a report by Der Spiegel that the female ISIS fighters were taken by the Iraqi special forces and held at a cell in the international airport in Baghdad. German officials are said to have visited the detainees.

Local media in Germany reported that Linda W. was in contact with ISIS militants via social media. She had converted to Islam before she left Germany during which time she changed her dressing as she covered her hair and wore long gowns.

Her mother is said to have found a plane ticket under Linda. W.'s bed bound to Turkey last Summer.

Earlier this week, it was reported that the Iraqi security forces detained a French woman together with her four children in Mosul. The French authorities are in contact with the Iraqis to take back the children to France, while they have shown no interest to extradite the French woman, leaving her to be prosecuted in Iraq.

She is belived to be in her 30s, and was captured in Mosul's Old City, located west of the Tigris river where some of the hardest fighting took place between the Iraqi forces and the ISIS militants. Her husband is said to have been killed during the Mosul offensive.

Two Iraqi intelligence officials told the AP that the woman is being investigated in the capital Baghdad and could face terrorism charges for illegally entering Iraq and joining ISIS.


[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]