Nasrin As'ad Ibrahim (), better known by the ''

nom de guerre A ''nom de guerre'' (, 'war name') is a pseudonym chosen by someone to use when they are involved in a particular activity, especially fighting in a war. In Ancien régime, ''ancien régime'' Kingdom of France, France it would be adopted by each n ...

'' Umm Sayyaf (), is the widow of

Abu Sayyaf Abu Sayyaf (; , ASG), officially known by the Islamic State as the Islamic State – East Asia Province, was a Jihadist militant and piracy, pirate group that followed the Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. It was based in and around Jolo and B ...

. She was captured in May 2015 by US

Delta Force The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (1st SFOD-D), also known as Delta Force, Combat Applications Group (CAG), or within Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) as Task Force Green, is a Special operation forces, special operat ...

soldiers on the mission where they killed her husband, a suspected leader of the

Islamic State The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS ...

. During the raid Delta Force soldiers were also reported to have rescued a young

Yazidi Yazidis, also spelled Yezidis (; ), are a Kurdish-speaking endogamous religious group indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. The majority of Yazidis remaining in ...

woman the couple had been keeping as a

slave Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

National Security Council A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a n ...

spokesperson Bernadette Meehan stated, "We suspect that Umm Sayyaf is a member of ISIL, played an important role in ISIL's terrorist activities, and may have been complicit in the enslavement of the young woman rescued last night." Umm Sayyaf is believed to be an Iraqi citizen. Initial reports said that she was in US custody in Iraq. On August 6, 2015 Umm Sayyaf was turned over to the Kurdish regional authorities in Erbil. James Gordon Meek, of ''

ABC News ABC News most commonly refers to: * ABC News (Australia), a national news service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation * ABC News (United States), a news-gathering and broadcasting division of the American Broadcasting Company ABC News may a ...

'' noted some American prosecutors wanted to try to prosecute her in the US justice system. He characterized the Kurdish justice system as being ''"known for lightning-swift justice."'' According to John Knefel, reporting for

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...

, legal critics have challenged the Obama administration for a lack of transparency over the justification for holding Umm Sayyaf in

extrajudicial detention Administrative detention is arrest and detention of individuals by the state without trial. A number of jurisdictions claim that it is done for security reasons. Many countries claim to use administrative detention as a means to combat terrorism ...

. He said, "The administration's secrecy surrounding the conditions of her imprisonment have led some lawyers and legal analysis to raise questions about what rights and protections she's being afforded, and what policy guidelines will govern treatment of new detainees in what some now refer to as the Forever War." The family of American hostage

Kayla Mueller Kayla Jean Mueller (August 14, 1988 – February 6, 2015) was an American human rights activist and humanitarian aid worker from Prescott, Arizona, United States. She was taken captive in August 2013 in Aleppo, Syria, after leaving a Doctors Wi ...

reported that they had been told that, during her captivity, she was imprisoned by Abu Sayyaf and Umm Sayyaf and sexually abused by Abu Sayyaf before she was taken as a wife and sexually abused by

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri (28 July 1971 – 27 October 2019), commonly known by his ''nom de guerre'' Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was an Iraqi militant leader who was the founder and first leader of the Islamic State (IS), who proclaimed hims ...

girls, who had been held as sex slaves by Abu Sayyaf, and who later escaped, were the first to report that Mueller was also sexually abused before her death. Interrogation of various individuals by intelligence officials seemed to indicate that al-Baghdadi had been Mueller's primary abuser. On February 8, 2016, Sayyaf was charged by American prosecutors in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization that resulted in a person's death. The federal charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment."Kayla Mueller's death results in terrorist charges for ISIS leader's wife", by Reuters, via CBC.ca
/ref> In May 2019, it was reported that she had been cooperating with the CIA and Kurdish intelligence in the hunt for al-Baghdadi.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite news , url = http://america.aljazeera.com/blogs/scrutineer/2015/7/1/us-vague-on-status-of-detained-isil-widow.html , title = US vague on status of detained 'ISIL widow' , publisher =

, author = John Knefel , archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150701233914/http://america.aljazeera.com/blogs/scrutineer/2015/7/1/us-vague-on-status-of-detained-isil-widow.html , archive-date = 2015-07-01 , url-status = live , quote = For the last two months, however, the US has once again found itself in the business of detaining a prisoner in this ill-defined and seemingly endless battle. {{cite news , url = http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/11/u-s-has-no-idea-how-long-it-will-keep-an-isis-bride-locked-up.html , title = U.S. Has No Idea How Long It Will Keep an ISIS Bride Locked Up , publisher =

Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. Founded in 2008, the website is owned by IAC Inc. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief ...

, author = Shane Harris, Nancy A. Youssef , date = 2015-06-11 , quote = "Umm Sayyaf is being detained by the Defense Department in a safe location inside Iraq," Lt. Col. Myles Caggins, the Defense Department's spokesman for detainee policy, told The Daily Beast. "We are working to determine an ultimate disposition for the detainee that best supports the national security of the United States and of our allies and partners, consistent with domestic and international law." {{cite news , url = https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/id/128832/ , title = Carter: Special Operations Troops Conduct Raid in Syria , publisher =

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and superv ...

, author =

Ashton Carter Ashton Baldwin Carter (September 24, 1954 – October 24, 2022) was an American government official and academic who served as the 25th United States secretary of defense from February 2015 to January 2017. He later served as director of the Be ...

, date = 2015-06-16 , location =

Washington DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

, archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150518082218/http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=128832 , archive-date = 2015-05-18 , access-date = 2015-07-01 , url-status = live , quote = Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced in a statement today that U.S. special operations forces yesterday conducted an operation in Syria to capture a senior leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorist organization. {{cite news , url = https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-usa-idUSKBN0O10FP20150516 , title = U.S. conducts raid in Syria, says it kills senior Islamic State leader , publisher =

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

, author = Will Dunham, Matt Spetalnick , date = 2015-05-16 , location =

, archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150518085337/https://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/16/us-mideast-crisis-usa-idUSKBN0O10FP20150516 , archive-date = 2015-05-18 , access-date = 2015-07-01 , url-status = live {{cite news , url = https://abcnews.go.com/International/isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-sexually-abused/story?id=33085923 , title = ISIS Leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Sexually Abused American Hostage Kayla Mueller, Officials Say , publisher =

, author = James Gordon Meek , date = 2015-08-14 , location =

, access-date = 2015-08-14 , quote = The information about al-Baghdadi's extraordinary direct role in the captivity and physical abuse of Kayla Mueller was drawn from, among many sources, the U.S. debriefings of at {{sic, least least two Yezedi teenage girls, ages 16 and 18, held as sex slaves in the Sayyaf compound as well as from the interrogation of Abu Sayyaf's wife Umm Sayyaf, who was captured in the U.S. raid, the officials told ABC News. {{Cite news , title = Abu Sayyaf, key ISIS figure in Syria, killed in raid , publisher =

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

, url = http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/17/middleeast/syria-isis-us-raid/index.html , date = 2015-05-17 , author = Barbara Starr, Laura Smith-Spark and Ray Sanchez , access-date = 2015-05-17 , archive-date = 2015-06-12 , archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150612104244/http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/17/middleeast/syria-isis-us-raid/index.html , url-status = live , quote = The officials identified Sayyaf's captured wife as Umm Sayyaf, an Iraqi. She is now being held in Iraq. {{Citation , url = https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/05/16/statement-nsc-spokesperson-bernadette-meehan-counter-isil-operation-sy-1 , date = 2015-05-16 , author = Bernadette Meehan , title = Statement by NSC Spokesperson Bernadette Meehan on Counter-ISIL Operation in Syria , archive-date = 2017-01-22 , archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170122143147/https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/05/16/statement-nsc-spokesperson-bernadette-meehan-counter-isil-operation-sy-1 , url-status = live , via =

National Archives National archives are the archives of a country. The concept evolved in various nations at the dawn of modernity based on the impact of nationalism upon bureaucratic processes of paperwork retention. Conceptual development From the Middle Ages i ...

, work =

whitehouse.gov whitehouse.gov or wh.gov is the official website of the White House and is managed by the Office of Digital Strategy of the White House Office under the Executive Office of the President of the United States. It was launched in 1994 by the ...

, quote = We suspect that Umm Sayyaf is a member of ISIL, played an important role in ISIL's terrorist activities, and may have been complicit in the enslavement of the young woman rescued last night. {{cite news , url = http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/100820151 , title = ISIS' Umm Sayyaf to be sentenced in Kurdistan , publisher = Rudaw Company , author = Rudaw , date = 2015-08-10 , location =

Erbil Erbil (, ; , ), also called Hawler (, ), is the capital and most populated city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The city is the capital of the Erbil Governorate. Human settlement at Erbil may be dated back to the 5th millennium BC. At the h ...

, access-date = 2015-08-15 , quote = US forces handed over the criminal Nasrin As'ad Ibrahim (Umm Sayyaf) to the Kurdistan region security council for a trial. {{Cite news , title = Family says daughter raped repeatedly while held by IS , publisher =

MSN MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps provided by Microsoft. The main webpage provides news, weather, sports, finance and other content curated from hundreds of different sources that Microsoft has partnere ...

, url = https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/islamic-state-leader-raped-american-hostage-us-finds/ar-BBlKvOT , date = 2015-08-15 , author = Ken Dilanian, AP , access-date = 2015-08-15 , quote = Mueller was held for a time by Islamic State financier Abu Sayyaf and his wife, known as Umm Sayyaf. Al-Baghdadi took Mueller as a "wife," repeatedly raping her when he visited, according to a Yazidi teenager who was held with Mueller and escaped in October 2014. 21st-century Iraqi women Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant members from Iraq Year of birth missing (living people) Iraqi prisoners and detainees Prisoners and detainees of Iraq