Emilie Koenig, a Frenchwoman suspected of recruiting fighters for the Islamic State (IS) group who figured on US and UN blacklists, has been arrested by Kurdish forces in Syria, her mother said Tuesday, reports FRANCE 24.
The 33-year-old daughter of a gendarme is "being held in a Kurdish camp and has been interrogated and tortured," her mother told Ouest-France newspaper.
Koenig went to Syria in 2014 and three of her children were born in that country.
She was put on the UN list of the most dangerous fighters and a year later figured on a US terror list.
Koenig converted to Islam after marrying her first husband, a man of Algerian origin, who was arrested for drug trafficking.
She learnt Arabic, changed her name to Samra and started wearing a veil. She left for Syria to join her new partner, who was eventually killed.
She appeared in several propaganda videos in which she appealed for jihad "as long as the enemy is around".
French intelligence also intercepted several phone calls in which Koenig urged her contacts in France to attack French institutions and target the wives of French soldiers.
News of her detention follows reports in the French press last week that prominent jihadist recruiter Thomas Barnouin and several other French Islamists were captured by Kurdish fighters in Syria.