The teenage girl from Germany who joined the Islamic State militant
group (ISIS) in Iraq has appeared in a video uploaded to YouTube that
shows the moment Iraqi forces captured her in the northern city of
Mosul.
The mobile phone footage shows 16-year-old Linda W.
surrounded by Iraqi soldiers who have battled to liberate the city from
ISIS for nine months. Two of the soldiers are holding her arms, and she
screams as they shout at her. Iraqi troops have accused her of being a
sniper for ISIS.
Newsweek is withholding the girl's identity on account of her age.
Iraqi troops discovered Linda W. hiding in a tunnel in the Old City
alongside other women who had joined ISIS, as well as an array of
weapons.
The German press interviewed her after Iraqi forces
transferred her to Baghdad for questioning, where she appeared to show
regret for joining the group.
“I just want to get away from here,” she was quoted as saying by German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung,
which also said that she had married an ISIS fighter in Mosul. “I want
to get away from the war, from the many weapons, from the noise.”
She added: “I just want to go home to my family.”
German officials have visited the girl and said they are providing
consular assistance to her and another woman who is a German national.
If she remains in Iraq, she could face trial on terrorism charges that
carry a maximum sentence of the death penalty.
Martin Schafer told The Times
that the teenager is “doing well given the circumstances” and that
Berlin is trying to “find a good solution that corresponds to their
interests.”
Linda fled her hometown of Pulsnitz near the eastern
city of Dresden last summer, telling her family she was going to visit a
friend. Before leaving for the Middle East, she converted to Islam and
contacted ISIS fighters via Internet chat rooms in the region.
German
security services say more than 900 German nationals have left the
country to fight for ISIS in the Middle East, at least a fifth of whom
are women.
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