Wife of Islamic State Leader Jailed for 8 Years in Somalia

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A military tribunal in Somalia has sentenced the wife of the head of the Islamic State terrorist organization to eight years in prison for passing on information and organizing financial transactions for the group, a military official said Monday.

Fartun Abdirashid, wife of Abdiqadir Mumin, was sentenced on Monday at a military court.

She has been under custody since her arrest in March last year in the capital, Mogadishu.

Abdirashid was accused of frequently transferring $100 to $200 to the group’s members, the public prosecutor’s office said.

She had a working relationship with Bilal Al-Sudaani, a senior Islamic State group official who was killed on Wednesday in a U.S. raid in Somalia’s northern Bari region.

Mumin, a former al-Shabab cleric, pledged his allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2015.

IS holds a smaller footprint in Somalia compared to the al-Shabab terrorist group that has carried out numerous attacks in the country.

Somalia’s forces are carrying out an offensive against al-Shabab that has been described at the most significant in more than a decade.