Baghdad: Iraq sentenced a French woman to life in prison for belonging to the Islamic State group, the latest in a series of court rulings since the country's defeat of Islamic State.

Djamila Boutoutaou, a 29-year-old of Algerian origin, told a Baghdad court that she had left France with her husband, a rapper.

She said she thought they were going on holiday but "when I arrived in Turkey I discovered that my husband was a jihadist".

She said she was forced by her husband to join Islamic State and live in the "caliphate" that the jihadists proclaimed in 2014 straddling Syria and Iraq.

Her husband was killed near the former jihadist stronghold of Mosul, northern Iraq, and her son died in bombardment, Boutoutaou said.

Two Russian women, both holding children in their arms, were also sentenced to life in prison at the same hearing.

Iraq declared victory in December against Islamic State, which at one point controlled a third of the country. The Iraqi anti-terrorism law empowers courts to convict people who are believed to have helped Islamic State even if they are not accused of violence.

In January, an Iraqi court condemned a German woman to death after finding her guilty of belonging to Islamic State.

A court the following month sentenced another French woman to seven months in jail for entering Iraq illegally but ordered her release on time already served.

Several dozen Turkish women have been sentenced to death under Iraqi anti-terrorism laws.</s>The Islamic State, or ISIS, is a militant organization that emerged as an offshoot of al Qaeda in 2014. It quickly took control of large parts of Iraq and Syria, raising its black flag in victory and declaring the creation of a caliphate and imposing strict Islamic rule.

The group is sometimes also referred to as ISIL — for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant— or by its Arabic acronym, Daesh.

It is largely made up of Sunni militants from Iraq and Syria but has also drawn thousands of fighters from across the Muslim world and Europe.

Its tactics — including beheadings, the taking of slaves and bans on “un-Islamic” behavior such as music and smoking — are so brutal that it was even disowned by al Qaeda.

What is the Islamic State fighting for?

The militants' goal is an ultra-conservative caliphate that strictly enforces Shariah, or Islamic, law.

Who started and led the Islamic State?

ISIS was founded by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi.

He first led al Qaeda in Iraq, transforming it into an effective and organized fighting force. The group changed its name in April 2013, signaling its broader ambition of establishing a caliphate extending across Iraq and Syria.

In June 2014, ISIS published a manifesto purporting to trace al-Baghdadi's lineage directly back to the Prophet Muhammad.

Russia believes one of its airstrikes may have killed al-Baghdadi in May 2017. However, that has never been confirmed.

The group’s director of external operations, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, is on the FBI’s Most Wanted List as the man most likely to cause harm in the West.

Counterterrorism officials have said that al-Adnani most likely "greenlighted" the deadly Paris terrorist attacks in November 2015 that killed 130.

What role did women play in ISIS?

ISIS doesn’t recruit women for battlefield roles, but it still has enlisted women from around the Muslim world and Europe to help build its caliphate.

The group uses social media to get the word out, promising women husbands who are devout jihadis.

In its one-time capital, Raqqa, a female brigade enforced their strict interpretation of Shariah by ensuring that women dressed according to their standards of modesty and by punishing them with lashes if they violated the code.

What was the U.S. response to ISIS?

Since 2014, the U.S. has led a coalition of countries carrying out airstrikes against ISIS and in support of Iraqi troops fighting the militants.

By the end of 2017, ISIS lost much of its ground in Iraq and Syria, and Iraq declared its war against the militant group over in December.

However, while ISIS' self-declared caliphate is in territorial tatters, analysts have warned that the group is retreating into what some call a “virtual caliphate" from where it will attempt to inspire more lone wolf terror attacks in the West.</s>Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Iraq will receive a new batch of South Korean fighter jets by the end of 2018 as per a contract signed in 2013, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said Iraqi ambassador to South Korea, Haider Shayya al-Barak, visited the headquarter of the manufacturing company, KAI, to follow up on the execution of the contract for T-50 IQ fighter jets.

According to the statement, Iraq had already received two batches, six fighters each, and a third batch with the same number is expected by the end of the current year.

The contract involves the purchase of 24 aircraft.

T-50s entered service in the South Korean forces in 2005. The fighter is worth USD21 million. It will join Iraq’s fleet of U.S. F-16, Russian Sukhoi and Czech fighters.</s>The Islamic State, or ISIS, is a militant organization that emerged as an offshoot of al Qaeda in 2014. It quickly took control of large parts of Iraq and Syria, raising its black flag in victory and declaring the creation of a caliphate and imposing strict Islamic rule.

The group is sometimes also referred to as ISIL — for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant— or by its Arabic acronym, Daesh.

It is largely made up of Sunni militants from Iraq and Syria but has also drawn thousands of fighters from across the Muslim world and Europe.

Its tactics — including beheadings, the taking of slaves and bans on “un-Islamic” behavior such as music and smoking — are so brutal that it was even disowned by al Qaeda.

What is the Islamic State fighting for?

The militants' goal is an ultra-conservative caliphate that strictly enforces Shariah, or Islamic, law.

Who started and led the Islamic State?

ISIS was founded by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi.

He first led al Qaeda in Iraq, transforming it into an effective and organized fighting force. The group changed its name in April 2013, signaling its broader ambition of establishing a caliphate extending across Iraq and Syria.

In June 2014, ISIS published a manifesto purporting to trace al-Baghdadi's lineage directly back to the Prophet Muhammad.

Russia believes one of its airstrikes may have killed al-Baghdadi in May 2017. However, that has never been confirmed.

The group’s director of external operations, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, is on the FBI’s Most Wanted List as the man most likely to cause harm in the West.

Counterterrorism officials have said that al-Adnani most likely "greenlighted" the deadly Paris terrorist attacks in November 2015 that killed 130.

What role did women play in ISIS?

ISIS doesn’t recruit women for battlefield roles, but it still has enlisted women from around the Muslim world and Europe to help build its caliphate.

The group uses social media to get the word out, promising women husbands who are devout jihadis.

In its one-time capital, Raqqa, a female brigade enforced their strict interpretation of Shariah by ensuring that women dressed according to their standards of modesty and by punishing them with lashes if they violated the code.

What was the U.S. response to ISIS?

Since 2014, the U.S. has led a coalition of countries carrying out airstrikes against ISIS and in support of Iraqi troops fighting the militants.

By the end of 2017, ISIS lost much of its ground in Iraq and Syria, and Iraq declared its war against the militant group over in December.

However, while ISIS' self-declared caliphate is in territorial tatters, analysts have warned that the group is retreating into what some call a “virtual caliphate" from where it will attempt to inspire more lone wolf terror attacks in the West.</s>Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi judiciary sentenced on Tuesday seven foreign women of various nationalities to death and life in jail over affiliation with Islamic State militants, news reports said.

The Supreme Judicial Council said in a statement that the Central Criminal Court sentenced three Azerbaijanis and one Kergyz to death, while issuing a life sentence for two Russians and a French national.

Earlier news reports quoted AFP identifying the French nationa as 29-year-old Jamila Botoato.

In February, Iraq sentenced a French woman to seven months in jail for entering the country illegally. In the same month, 16 Turkish women were sentenced to death for providing logistical support to the militants.

Iraq is holding hundreds of foreign wives and children of Islamic State militants who were captured as Iraqi forces gradually seized back territories held by the extremist group since 2014. The government declared victory over IS last December.

Authorities say they are coordinating with other countries to extradite those held who are not convicted of terrorism.









</s>Iraq has sentenced two women from Russia to life in prison after convicting them of belonging to the extremist Islamic State group.

The two women sentenced by a Baghdad court on April 17 were identified by officials from Chechnya as natives of Daghestan, which neighbors Chechnya in Russia's North Caucasus region.

Russian state media reports citing Iraqi television said three women from Azerbaijan were sentenced to death at the same hearing, as was a woman from Kyrgyzstan. Details about those women could not be immediately confirmed.

AFP reported that five women from Azerbaijan were sentenced to death at the hearing. The discrepancy between that report and the Russian state media reports could not immediately be reconciled.

The two Russian women sentenced to life in prison held small children in their arms during the hearing.

Iraq in December declared victory against IS militants who at one point controlled one-third of the country’s territory.

The country’s antiterrorism laws allow courts to convict those believed to have assisted IS militants even if they have not been accused of violent actions.

Iraq is reportedly holding more than 1,000 foreign women suspected of IS links, most of them from Turkey and the former Soviet Union. Some of these women have been sentenced to death.

The Associated Press reported last month that Iraq is holding more than 19,000 people due to alleged IS ties.

Human Rights Watch, which estimated a similar figure late last year, has warned that Iraq's antiterror laws are sweeping up suspects with minimal IS involvement. It said in December that 7,374 people had been found guilty of involvement in IS under Iraq's antiterrorism laws since 2014, of whom 92 have been executed.

Iraqi authorities have yet to announce the carrying out of death sentences against foreign women convicted of belonging to IS.

With reporting by AFP, TASS, RIA Novosti, The New York Times, Reuters, AP, and The Daily Telegraph</s>Iraq has held around 1,400 foreign wives and children of suspected Islamic State fighters since U.S.-backed forces recaptured the city of Mosul in 2017. Most of them hail from Turkey, followed by women from Russia and the former Soviet republics.

Iraq has reportedly sentenced two Russian women to life in prison for ties to Islamic State.

A criminal court in Iraq sentenced two Russian women and one French woman to life sentences in prison for Islamic State ties, local media reported Tuesday.

Three Azerbaijani women and one Kyrgyz woman were reportedly sentenced to death.

Elvira Beremova, born in 1997, and Alisa Ismailova, born in 1992, were convicted on charges of terrorism and illegally crossing the border, the BBC Russia service reported on Tuesday, citing a member of the Chechen human rights council.



Beremova is reportedly a mother of two and Ismailova is a mother of three. 



A Russian senator told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency that Moscow has two weeks to file an appeal.

“We did our best to alleviate the plight of the imprisoned Russian women without violating the laws of Iraq,” RIA cited Russian Senator Ziyad Sabsabi as saying.

RIA reported that Beremova and Ismailova are listed among 57 Russian women and around 100 of their children detained in a female prison in Baghdad as of March.</s>The broadcaster reported, citing a ruling of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq, that two Russian nationals and one woman from France had been handed life sentences.

The court also sentenced four people, including three Azerbaijani nationals and one woman from Kyrgyzstan, to death over their membership in the infamous terrorist group.

READ MORE: Iraq to Take All Necessary Measures to Block Cross-Border Daesh Attacks — Abadi

Last December, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi declared the end of the country's fight against Daesh after Iraqi troops re-established complete control over the country's border with Syria.</s>A member of the Russian diplomatic corps (left) talks with two Russian nationals as they attend their trial at the Central Penal Court in Baghdad on Tuesday (AFP photo)

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq on Tuesday sentenced a French woman to life in prison for belonging to the Daesh group, raising to more than 180 the number of such convictions of foreign women since the country's defeat of Daesh.

Djamila Boutoutaou, a 29-year-old of Algerian origin, told a Baghdad court that she left France with her husband, a rapper.

She said she thought they were going on holiday but "when I arrived in Turkey I discovered that my husband was a militant".

She said she was forced by her husband to join Daesh and live in the "caliphate" that the extremists proclaimed in 2014 straddling Syria and Iraq.

Boutoutaou, who appeared in court wearing a brown headscarf, said she and her two children had been forced to live in a "cave".

Her husband was killed near the former Daesh stronghold of Mosul, northern Iraq, and her son died in bombardment, Boutoutaou said, before she and the wife of a neighbour fled and surrendered to Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

Two women from Russia, both holding children in their arms, were also sentenced to life in prison at the same hearing, while five from Azerbaijan were condemned to death along with a woman from Trinidad.

Iraq declared victory in December against Daesh, which at one point controlled a third of the country.

The Iraqi anti-terrorism law empowers courts to convict people who are believed to have helped Daesh even if they are not accused of violence.

In January, an Iraqi court condemned a German woman to death after finding her guilty of belonging to Daesh.

A court the following month sentenced another French woman to seven months in jail for entering Iraq illegally but ordered her release on time already served.

Under Iraqi anti-terrorism laws, a total of 97 foreign women have now been condemned to death since January and 185 others to life imprisonment by courts in Baghdad, a judicial source told AFP.

Most of the women were from Turkey and republics of the former Soviet Union.

Iraqi authorities have not announced any of the sentences being carried out.</s>An Iraqi court sentenced seven women on terrorism charges. Three Azerbaijani women and a Kyrgyz woman were given death sentences. Two Russian women and a French woman were given life sentences for their involvement with ISIS/Daesh militants.

At least 10 people were killed, and five were wounded:

An attack on troops in Rutba left a number of casualties.

Seven militants were killed during operations in Anbar and Salah ad Din province.

In Imam Weis, security forces killed the leader of a local ISIS group.

Two militants were killed when the bomb they were attempting to plant in Hawi exploded.

The United States government is planning on moving an American citizen, suspected of being an ISIS member, to a third country.
• Kurdish Brothers Killed in Turkish Airstrike Among Four Killed in Iraq – April 14th, 2018
Iraq sentences seven foreign women for links to Islamic State. Three Azerbaijanis and one Kergyz receive death sentences while two Russians and a French women receive life sentences.