U.S. Transfers Widow of ISIS Oil Chief to Iraqi Kurds

Nasrin As’ad Ibrahim – also known as Umm Sayyaf – was the wife of Abu Sayyaf, who was alleged to be the jihadist group’s top financier and who was killed in a rare U.S. special forces raid in Syria in May.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a high-profile militant, said the transfer to Iraqi Kurdish custody “was done with the knowledge and consent of the Iraqi government in Baghdad”.

U.S. prosecutors had been preparing charges against Umm Sayyaf in connection with Mueller’s kidnapping.

Documents seized at the site, and hours of conversations with Umm Sayyaf, have provided American officials with some of their best intelligence to date on the Islamic State, U.S. officials have said.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren had revealed in May that, while Washington was working to find “an ultimate disposition for the detainee [Sayyaf]”, she would not end up in the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison facility.

The United States has no relationship with Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian government, but is an ally of the Kurdistan Regional Government and cooperates with Iraq in its fight against the Islamic State organization. Officials suspect she had a role in the capture of American citizen Kayla Mueller, an aid worker who was captured and later died in captivity in Syria.