­Iraq set to expel 500 wives of IS Jihadists

BAGHDAD: Iraq moved 500 wives of Islamic State group Jihadists to a detention centre in preparation to deport them after they were captured along with 800 children, a councillor said on Monday.

The women and children were detained in Iraq’s second city Mosul, capital of Nineveh province and IS’s main stronghold in the country until Iraqi forces retook it in July. "They are in a holding centre in Tal Kayf under the control of Iraqi security forces, so their cases can be examined before they are eventually expelled from the country," the Nineveh province councillor told AFP.

The spouses and their children were moved Sunday from a camp run by international aid agencies 60 kilometres south of Mosul, said the official, who asked to remain anonymous. A senior Iraqi security official said the 509 women and 813 children held 13 different nationalities from Europe, Asia and the Americas. A government official said around 300 of them were Turkish. "They are foreigners who entered the country illegally", a minister told AFP. "Legal measures must be taken against them because, when they were detained, they were in an area controlled by terrorists." —