German Woman Allegedly Took 6yo Daughter to Watch ISIS Stoning in Syria

German special police forces in Hildesheim, Germany, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
German special police forces in Hildesheim, Germany, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
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German Woman Allegedly Took 6yo Daughter to Watch ISIS Stoning in Syria

German special police forces in Hildesheim, Germany, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
German special police forces in Hildesheim, Germany, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

A German who allegedly took her young daughter to watch a woman being stoned while in ISIS-held territory in Syria has been charged with membership in the extremist group and other offenses, federal prosecutors said Friday.

The woman, identified only as Romiena S. in keeping with German privacy laws, was arrested at Frankfurt airport when she arrived on Oct. 7 among a group of women and children repatriated from a camp in northeastern Syria where suspected ISIS members were held.

She was charged at a court in the northern town of Celle with membership in a foreign terrorist organization, recruiting members for the group, a crime against humanity, the abduction of a minor, violating her duties of care and education, and approving of crimes, prosecutors said in a statement, The Associated Press reported.

The suspect traveled to Syria in late 2014 along with a 16-year-old girl she had persuaded to join her, prosecutors said. They said she took her 4-year-old daughter, against the wishes of the child’s father.

In Syria, she married several ISIS members, according to prosecutors. She brought up her daughter and two sons born in Syria in line with ISIS ideology, taking the girl — then age 6 — to the stoning of a woman and showing her execution videos, they said.

She also is accused of exploiting a Yazidi woman enslaved by the extremist group for a few days in 2016, ordering her to do household duties at the home of a slave trader in Raqqa and guarding her as she went into town.

The suspect also posted messages on Twitter supporting extremist attacks in Nice, France, and Wuerzburg, Germany, in 2016, prosecutors said.



Pakistan Says Pausing Military Operations against Afghanistan Temporarily

Taliban security personnel inspect the site after Pakistani airstrikes hit the Secondary Rehabilitation Services Center in Kabul on March 17, 2026. (Photo by Wakil KOHSAR / AFP)
Taliban security personnel inspect the site after Pakistani airstrikes hit the Secondary Rehabilitation Services Center in Kabul on March 17, 2026. (Photo by Wakil KOHSAR / AFP)
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Pakistan Says Pausing Military Operations against Afghanistan Temporarily

Taliban security personnel inspect the site after Pakistani airstrikes hit the Secondary Rehabilitation Services Center in Kabul on March 17, 2026. (Photo by Wakil KOHSAR / AFP)
Taliban security personnel inspect the site after Pakistani airstrikes hit the Secondary Rehabilitation Services Center in Kabul on March 17, 2026. (Photo by Wakil KOHSAR / AFP)

Pakistan is pausing its military operations against Afghanistan temporarily, Pakistan's Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said in a post on X on Wednesday.

Earlier, Afghanistan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani on Wednesday promised retribution for this week's Pakistani airstrike that killed hundreds at a Kabul drugs rehabilitation center.
"We will take revenge," the Taliban government minister said at the mass burial of some of the victims in the capital, calling those behind Monday night's bombing "criminals".
"We are not weak and helpless. You will see the consequences of your crimes," he added.
The Taliban authorities have said that about 400 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in the strike, which was the deadliest attack yet in the recent upsurge in violence between the two neighbors.
Not all victims are being buried in Kabul, as some bodies have been sent for burial in their home provinces, interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani told AFP earlier.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said on Wednesday that "hundreds" were killed and wounded, in the first independent confirmation of the heavy death toll.
Pakistan has denied Taliban government claims that the center was deliberately targeted and said it had carried out precision strikes on "military installations and terrorist support infrastructure".
The strike has renewed calls for an end to the conflict, which has seen strikes on both sides of the shared border. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harbouring extremists behind attacks on its territory. Kabul denies doing so.


Russia Condemns Killing of Iranian Security Chief Larijani

Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with Iran's then parliament Speaker Ali Larijani as they meet after a session of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia, October 22, 2015. (Reuters)
Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with Iran's then parliament Speaker Ali Larijani as they meet after a session of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia, October 22, 2015. (Reuters)
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Russia Condemns Killing of Iranian Security Chief Larijani

Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with Iran's then parliament Speaker Ali Larijani as they meet after a session of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia, October 22, 2015. (Reuters)
Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with Iran's then parliament Speaker Ali Larijani as they meet after a session of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia, October 22, 2015. (Reuters)

Russia on Wednesday condemned the killing of Iranian security chief Ali Larijani, after ally Tehran vowed retaliation for his death in an Israeli airstrike.

Larijani had met Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin in January, at a time when US navy ships were heading towards Iran ahead of the US-Israeli air campaign launched at the end of February, according to AFP.

"We firmly condemn actions aimed at harming the health and, even more, the killing of the leadership of sovereign and independent Iran. We condemn such actions," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a daily briefing.

Moscow is a close ally of Iran and has condemned the US and Israeli attacks, which Tehran has responded to with a barrage of missile and drone strikes on US allies across the Gulf.

Last year, the two countries, both heavily sanctioned by the West, signed a broad cooperation agreement, but it stopped short of a mutual defense pact.

The version of the document made public only vaguely mentioned that Moscow and Tehran agreed to help each other counter common "security threats" and would not provide "assistance to the aggressor" if one side was attacked.

Since the outbreak of the war, Russia has sent humanitarian aid, but otherwise declined to comment publicly on what support it has offered Iran, if any.

The Kremlin last week denied a Washington Post report that Russia had passed sensitive intelligence to Iran, including the locations of US warships and aircraft in the region.

Iran emerged as one of Russia's main allies during the war in Ukraine, supplying it at the start of the conflict with drones for Moscow to fire on Ukrainian cities.


Iran Executed Swedish Citizen, Says Sweden FM

File photo of the Iranian flag (Reuters)
File photo of the Iranian flag (Reuters)
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Iran Executed Swedish Citizen, Says Sweden FM

File photo of the Iranian flag (Reuters)
File photo of the Iranian flag (Reuters)

Sweden's foreign minister on Wednesday confirmed that Iran had executed a Swedish citizen, after Iranian authorities announced the first execution of a man convicted of spying since the start of its war against Israel and the United States.

"It is with dismay that I have received information that a Swedish citizen was executed in Iran earlier today," Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said in a statement, AFP reported.

Since the man's arrest during Iran's 12-day war with Israel in June, Sweden has "repeatedly raised the case at various levels with Iranian representatives," she added.