Turkey holds French woman who ‘married jihadist in Syria’

ANKARA – Agence France-Presse

AA Photo

Turkish police detained a young French woman who crossed back into Turkey after joining the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists in neighboring Syria, a security official said June 4.

During a three-month stay in Syria, the woman married and then split up from a jihadist and was put in a jail operated by the ISIL group before being released, the official said.

The woman, named as Sonia Belayati, 22, was detained at a bus terminal in the southeastern Şanlıurfa province early June 2 after France provided Turkish authorities with intelligence, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The woman had flown into Istanbul in March and then crossed into Syria and joined the ISIL extremists.

“She worked for the Daesh terrorist organization for about three months,” the official said, using an Arabic acronym for the group.

“She later got married to a high-level foreign fighter in Daesh and stayed in Syria,” the official said.

The woman later split up with the jihadist and was detained in an ISIL prison in Syria for almost one month.

After her release, she illegally crossed the border into Şanlıurfa where she was detained by the security forces.

Turkey has started deportation procedures for the woman, with the knowledge of French authorities, the Turkish official added.