EXCLUSIVE: Abu Sayyaf’s Yezidi 'slave girl' to be released

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdish Yezidi woman rescued by US commandos during a raid in Syria on the Islamic State’s top financier is now set to be released from questioning at the US Consulate in Erbil.

In an exclusive Rudaw phone interview, the young woman said she expects to rejoin her family soon.

“I am safe and very good. I feel free and I am so happy about it. This is actually the only thing I can tell you for now,” she said on condition of anonymity while still inside a US intelligence unit in the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.

In the May 16 raid, launched against an eastern Syria site in the Deir ez-Zour area, US Special Forces killed Abu Sayyaf, a man described as the Islamic State's head of oil operations. Along with the main target, US forces captured his wife, known as Umm Sayyaf, and rescued the Kurdish Yezidi woman who had been enslaved.

A US defense official knowledgeable about details of the raid said a team of Delta Force commandos slipped across the border from Iraq under cover of darkness on May 16 aboard Black Hawk helicopters and V-22 Osprey aircraft.

“The girl is in good health and she will be sent back to her family soon,” a US consular source told Rudaw.

After the fall of Shingal to ISIS jihadists last year, the young woman was captured along with thousands of other Yezidi women and children. She was sent to Tal Afar, an ethnically Turkmen city some 63 kilometers west of the ISIS stronghold of Mosul.

Later, she was forced in a bus with other Yezidi women and moved into neighboring Syria, where they were divided up and taken by ISIS officials. She ended up enslaved in Abu Sayyaf’s house.

A source knowledgeable with the case said she is from Ger Ozair, and most of her relatives remain in ISIS custody. The source also said US officials told the family to expect her back in one of the Duhok refugee camps on Monday.

The Kurdish Yezidi girl has been under questioning by US intelligence agents since her rescue. Two women close to her are staying with her inside the consulate.

Hadi Dubani, head of Yezidi affairs in Duhok, confirmed to Rudaw: “They are expecting to receive the girl soon in a formal reunification ceremony.”

“The Kurdistan Regional Government and Yezidi community praise the US efforts for this Yezidi girl," Dubani said.

Dubani said the woman's two-week stay in the custody of the US was no reason for alarm.

"There was no concern of her health situation. She was just under investigation and will come back to her family on Monday,” he added.

ISIS launched a massive assault on the town of Shingal on August 3. Thousands of Kurdish Yezidi families fled to Mount Shingal and hundreds of men were massacred inside the town.

During the attack, some 5,000 Yezidi Kurds were captured. Nine-hundred Yezidis have managed to escape with the remainder still missing. Reports claim the Islamic State jihadists moved at least 1,000 Kurdish Yezidi women and children to Syria.