ABC News is reporting that Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi repeatedly raped American hostage Kayla Mueller while she was under ISIS control. The terrorist group murdered the young woman earlier this year.
Her parents, Carl and Marsha, told the news outlet that officials confirmed the gruesome news to them.
“We were told Kayla was tortured, that she was the property of al-Baghdadi. We were told that in June by the government,” they stated.
It turns out it was the leader who imprisoned the young woman. From ABC News:
Al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi who calls himself “Caliph” as ruler of the Islamic State, personally brought the enslaved 26-year-old humanitarian aid worker from Prescott, Arizona, to be imprisoned inside the home of Abu Sayyaf, a Tunisian in charge of oil and gas revenue for the group, counter-terrorism officials have told ABC News over the past several months.
“Baghdadi was at the house of Sayyaf. He delivered Kayla Mueller, live and in person,” one of several counter-terrorism officials briefed on the case told ABC News.
The top terror leader later regularly visited the compound to meet with Sayyaf and to repeatedly sexually assault Mueller, officials said.
ISIS captured Kayla Mueller in August 2013. The jihadists claimed an airstrike by Jordan killed her, but have only published a photo of rubble in Syria as proof of her death. A few days later, though, her parents in Arizona confirmed her death. The terrorists sent them pictures to prove she was gone. Officials told ABC News that no one truly knows how Mueller died.
In February, The Daily Beast reported that President Obama waited almost a month after British intelligence told him the location of American hostages to launch a rescue mission. Obama received the reports in June 2014, , but by the time he acted on July 4, ISIS already moved the hostages, which included Mueller, James Foley, and Steven Sotloff, to another location. ISIS executed Foley and Sotloff in August and September.