This Iraqi woman 'decapitated IS soldiers and cooked their heads'

An Iraqi woman who beheaded and cooked the heads of the Islamic State fighters to avenge the deaths of her family claims to be one of the people the movement fears most.“I fought them, I beheaded them, I cooked their heads, I burned their bodies,” Wahida Mohamed Al-Jumaily, 39, told CNN. She said she head received personal death threats “from the top leadership of the Islamic State including from [Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi himself.”

“I’m at the top of their most wanted list, even more than the Prime Minister,” she added. “Six times they tried to assassinate me. I have shrapnel in my head and legs, my ribs were broken, but all that didn’t stop me from fighting,” she told the CNN, showing them her scars and bruises. Better known as Um Hanadi, she has published photos on Facebook appearing to show her carrying a severed head, two severed heads in a cooking pot and a third showing her standing among headless bodies which have been burned.

The terror group killed her second husband earlier this year and has previously killed her father and three brothers. Describing herself as a “housewife”, she leads a 70-strong militia in the fight against Islamic State in the recently liberated town of Shirqat, which sits 50 miles south of Islamic State stronghold Mosul.

Um Hanadi began fighting militants in 2004, working with Iraqi forces and the coalition in the battle against al Qaeda and later Islamic State. She recently led her militia in battle to help government forces liberate Shirqat.

General Jamaa Anad, commander of Iraqi ground forces in Salahuddin province, told CNN they had provided her group with vehicles and weapons. “She lost her brothers and husbands as martyrs,” he said. “So out of revenge she formed her own force.” Kurdish soldiers claim Islamic State fighters believe those killed by heaven do not ascend to heaven. The prospect, the Kurds says, has left them frightened.