Woman accused of joining IS arrested on return to Germany

German prosecutors said Monday a German woman who allegedly joined the Islamic State group in Syria was arrested upon her return to the country. She is accused of membership in a foreign terrorist group, war crimes against property and other crimes.

Federal prosecutors said in a written statement that the woman, identified only as Nurten J. in line with local privacy laws, was arrested Friday at Frankfurt Airport.

Prosecutors allege she traveled with her then 4-year-old daughter to Syria in 2015 to join IS. There, she married a man who had also come from Germany and they started a family.

The woman allegedly raised her children according to IS ideology and in return she received a monthly payment from the extremist group and lived successively in five different apartments whose former tenants were either killed or evicted. In 2016 and 2017, she often had a friend visit her home who brought along an enslaved Yazidi woman who then allegedly had to clean J.’s home.

After IS lost its territories in Syria, J. and her family were captured by Kurds and were eventually taken into deportation custody in Turkey. It was not clear if she was returned to Germany in custody and and the fate of her children was not known. The federal prosecutor’s office could not immediately be reached for further details.