Lebanese authorities reportedly detain a wife of Islamic State leader

                        The Lebanese army detained a wife and daughter of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as they crossed from Syria nine days ago, security officials said on Tuesday, in a move seen as likely to put pressure on the Islamist chief.

The woman was identified as Saja al-Dulaimi, an Iraqi, by a Lebanese security official and a senior political source.

The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported she had been detained in coordination with "foreign intelligence".
There was no official confirmation from Lebanese authorities and various conflicting accounts of her reported arrest. The name of the woman identified as a Baghdadi spouse was not released.

The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir described the arrest as "a preemptive blow" against Islamic State, which has declared a "caliphate" across vast stretches of territory under its control in Syria and neighboring Iraq, prompting a U.S.-led air campaign against the group. Baghdadi has taken the title of "Caliph Ibrahim."

The woman carried a false identification when arrested in recent days at an unspecified border crossing, As-Safir reported. She was taken to Ministry of Defense, where "investigations with her are ongoing," the Lebanese newspaper said. Authorities had deliberately remained silent about "this great security achievement" until now, the newspaper reported.

She was reportedly detained with another person, alternately identified in press reports here as her son or daughter.

Lebanese authorities have been waging a campaign in the country against Sunni Muslim militants, including supports of Islamic State, a breakaway al-Qaida faction. Security officials say they have arrested group supporters and broken up several plots linked to the trans-national militant organization.

Security officials have described Islamic State as the world's wealthiest terrorist group, flush with funds from extortion rings, ransoms from kidnappings, seized banks and the proceeds from oil sales in Iraq and Syria. Thousands of foreign jihadists, including many westerners, have traveled to Syria to join Islamic State.

Relatively little is known about the personal life of Baghdadi, an Iraqi who was a leader of al-Qaida-linked Sunni Muslim rebels fighting against U.S. and Iraqi government forces in Iraq.

He has long been a secretive figure, largely known through grainy mug shots and audio messages. But he made a breakout public appearance this July, delivering a sermon at the Grand Mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which had been overrun by his followers the previous month. A video of his sermon was posted on the Internet, showing Baghdadi as a bulky, bearded figure who appeared to walk with a limp and urged Muslims to join a battle for what he described as Islam's lost glory.

Some unconfirmed reports have said that Baghdadi was injured last month during a U.S. air raid in Iraq that killed an associate.

Baghdadi, believed to be in his early 40s, is a Sunni Muslim cleric reportedly from the city of Samarra, 60 miles north of the capital, Baghdad.

Baghdadi, whose real name is said to be Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al Badri, was held by U.S. forces in Iraq as a "civilian internee" for 11 months before he was released in December 2004, according to the Pentagon. His Iraqi-based insurgent group moved into Syria after the outbreak of war there in 2011, and eventually split from al-Qaida in a dispute with the radical organization.

Baghdadi is said to be a disciple of the late Abu Musab Zarqawi, an al-Qaida militant from Jordan. Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Iraq in 2006 after leading a campaign of suicide bombings, kidnappings and hostage beheadings against both Western forces and Shiite Muslims, the majority sect in Iraq. Al-Qaida-style Sunni militants generally view Shiites and those of related Muslim sects as infidels.