Lebanon arrests wife, son of IS chief Baghdadi: military

BEIRUT: Lebanon has arrested a wife and son of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of the jihadist Islamic State (IS) group that has seized large chunks of Iraq and Syria, a military source said.

The two were detained by military intelligence 10 days ago near the town of Arsal, close to the border with Syria, the source told AFP, saying only that the woman was Syrian and that the boy was eight or nine years old.

But a security source named the woman as Saja al-Dulaimi, saying she belonged to the powerful Dulaimi tribe that straddles Syrian and Iraq, and that she was from the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor.

However, a French expert on jihadist movements, Romain Caillet, has raised doubts about whether the woman arrested is Baghdadi´s wife if she is indeed Saja al-Dulaimi.

He said Dulaimi had been exchanged for 13 Christian nuns and three helpers kidnapped in the Syrian town of Maalula in December by the Al-Nusra Front, the bitter enemy of IS, making it unlikely she would be Baghdadi´s wife.

It is not known how many wives and children Baghdadi has, but Islamic law allows men to marry four women and IS has encouraged its members to wed more than once.

Lebanese daily As-Safir, which first reported the arrest, said it was carried out "in coordination with foreign intelligence agencies". The woman was travelling on a false passport, it added, without elaborating.

The security source said the pair were taken to the defence ministry headquarters in Yarze, just outside Beirut, "where investigations were continuing". The arrest had been kept secret while security arrangements were made.