Turk apprehended before suicide attack on Iraqi army in Tal Afar
A still image from an Iraqi state TV report showing the arrest of a Turkish woman before she committed a suicide attack against Iraqi troops in Tal Afar, Nineveh.
Tal Afar (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi army forces arrested a Turkish woman before she blew herself up in the troops northwest of Nineveh, state TV reported on Sunday.
Al Iraqiya TV said the woman, of an Azebaijani origin, tried to storm into the troops and blow herself up in Ayadiyah, 15 kilometers northwest of Tal Afar, Islamic State’s last bastion in Nineveh province.
A report by the channel showed army commanders interrogating “Naela”, as she was identified by her captors. She said she had entered Iraq three years earlier with her husband, also a Turk, before he was killed in an air raid. She later got married to another Iraqi member of the Islamic State.
She was arrested wearing an explosive belt but was persuaded to surrender, according to the report.
Iraqi government forces recaptured Tal Afar late August following nearly a week of offensives. A month earlier, troops recaptured Mosul, Islamic State’s largest stronghold in Iraq., marking an effective collapse of the “caliphate” declared by IS in 2014.
Islamic State has recruited both foreign and local members in Iraq and Syria.
Iraqi military officials were recently quoted in news reports saying that more than 1300 women and children of Islamic State fighters had surrendered to the troops in Tal Afar late August. The captives included Russian, Turkish and central Asian nationals, according to the officials.