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

nom de guerre A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

'' Umm Sayyaf, is the widow of

Abu Sayyaf Abu Sayyaf (; ar, جماعة أبو سياف; ', ASG), officially known by the Islamic State as the Islamic State – East Asia Province, is a Jihadist militant and pirate group that follows the Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. It is based i ...

. She was captured in May 2015 by US

Delta Force The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (1st SFOD-D), referred to variously as Delta Force, Combat Applications Group (CAG), Army Compartmented Elements (ACE), "The Unit", or within Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), Task Fo ...

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

Islamic State An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...

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

Yazidi Yazidis or Yezidis (; ku, ئێزیدی, translit=Êzidî) are a Kurmanji-speaking endogamous minority group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The majo ...

woman the couple had been keeping as a

slave Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

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 na ...

spokesperson

Bernadette Meehan Bernadette M. Meehan (born 1975) is an American diplomat who is the current United States Ambassador to Chile. She previously worked as chief international officer for the Obama Foundation. She also served as a spokesperson for the United States ...

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 is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

'' 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 ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

, legal critics have challenged the

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...

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. She was taken captive in August 2013 in Aleppo, Syria, after leaving a Doctors Without Borders ho ...

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 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ( ar, أبو بكر البغدادي, ʾAbū Bakr al-Baḡdādī; born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali Muhammad al-Badri al-Samarrai ( ar, إبراهيم عواد إبراهيم علي محمد البدري السامرائي, ʾIb ...

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 state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

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. It was founded in 2008. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...

, 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 = http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?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 executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

, 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 ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, 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 Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

, 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 CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

, url = http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/17/middleeast/syria-isis-us-raid/index.html , date = 2015-05-17 , author =

Barbara Starr Barbara Starr (born September 11) is an American television news journalist who most recently worked for CNN. She was the network's United States Department of Defense, Pentagon correspondent, based in Washington, D.C., from 2001 to 2022. Caree ...

, 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 =

, 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 , work =

whitehouse.gov whitehouse.gov (also simply known as wh.gov) is the official website of the White House and is managed by the Office of Digital Strategy. It was launched on July 29, 1994 by the Clinton administration. The content of the website is in 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 (, ar, أربيل, Arbīl; syr, ܐܲܪܒܹܝܠ, Arbel), is the capital and most populated city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It lies in the Erbil Governorate. It has an estimated population of around 1,600,000. Hu ...

, 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 (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95. The Microsoft Net ...

, 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. Iraqi women Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant members from Iraq