WASHINGTON — The Prescott, Ariz., parents of slain American hostage Kayla Mueller say they have mixed emotions about the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Their daughter was a humanitarian aid worker who was kidnapped and taken hostage in August 2013 after leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo, Syria.
Ms. Mueller’s death was reported in February 2015. U.S. intelligence officials told her family four months later that she was raped repeatedly by al-Baghdadi, who kept her and a number of captured Yazidi women as his personal sex slaves.
The daring raid that killed al-Baghdadi was named after Ms. Mueller.
Carl Mueller told The Arizona Republic on Sunday that al-Baghdadi “either killed her or he was complicit in her murder.”
Marsha Mueller says she wants to know what truly happened to her daughter “and what aren’t we being told.”
Kayla Mueller’s body has yet to be recovered.
Al-Baghdadi — who was directly involved in some of his group’s most notorious atrocities, including the organized rape of women considered to be nonbelievers — took pleasure in brutality, according to women held captive by the terrorist leader.
The New York Times and The Washington Post contributed.
First Published: October 27, 2019, 11:26 p.m.
