An Iraqi grandmother leads a militia of 70 men fighting Islamic State in the Salahuddin province to avenge the killings of her family members.
Wahida Mohamed Al-Jumaily, better known as Um Hanadi, started fighting al-Qaida in 2004 and later made ISIS the target of her war against jihadis. ISIS is responsible for the deaths of Um Hanadi’s first two husbands, father and three brothers, which she says justifies any means to kill them.
“I fought them, I beheaded them, I cooked their heads, I burned their bodies,” she told CNN.
Um Hanadi, 39, now says she’s at the top of ISIS’s most wanted list. Bombs have been detonated outside her house several times and she has received death threats from the group, including personal ones from leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“Six times they tried to assassinate me,” she told CNN. “I have shrapnel in my head and legs, and my ribs were broken. But all that didn’t stop me from fighting.”
Um Hanadi and her militia operate in the recently liberated town of Shirqat, located about 50 miles south of ISIS’s Iraq stronghold Mosul.
The force is backed by Iraqi ground forces in the area, which provides the militia with weapons.
“She lost her brothers and husbands as martyrs,” Gen. Jamaa Anad, commander of Iraqi ground forces in the Salahuddin province, told CNN. “So out of revenge she formed her own force.”
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