Widow of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi reveals details of their life together

We play Umm Hudaifa the recording of our interview with Soad and she says: “I don’t deny that my husband was a criminal,” but adds she is “very sorry for what happened to them”, and denies the accusations directed at her.

Umm Hudaifa says that a little later, in January 2015, she briefly met the kidnapped US aid worker, Kayla Mueller, who was held hostage for 18 months and died in captivity.

The circumstances around Kayla’s death are still not known – at the time IS claimed she was killed by a Jordanian air strike, but the US always disputed this and an Iraqi security source has now told us she was killed by IS.

In 2019, US forces raided the place where al-Baghdadi and was hiding in north-west Syria with some of his family. Baghdadi detonated an explosive vest when cornered in a tunnel, killing himself and two children, while two of his four wives were killed in a shootout.

Umm Hudaifa was not there however – she had been living in Turkey under a false name where she was arrested in 2018. She was sent back to Iraq in February this year, where she has since been kept in prison while authorities investigate her role in IS.

Her eldest daughter Umaima is in prison with her, while Fatima who is about 12 is in a youth detention centre. One of her sons was killed in a Russian air strike in Syria near Homs, another died with his father in the tunnel and the youngest boy is in an orphanage.

When we finish talking, she raises her head and I briefly catch a glimpse of her full face, but her expression gives nothing away. As the intelligence officer leads her away, she pleads for more information about her youngest children. And now, back in her cell, she must wait to find out if she will face criminal charges.