The mother of Kayla Mueller, a deceased female aid worker who was captured and tortured by the Islamic State, criticized former President Barack Obama on Sunday by saying that her daughter might still be alive if he had been “as decisive” as President Donald Trump.
In August 2013, Mueller was imprisoned by ISIS, before being subsequently tortured and sexually abused by the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In February 2015, the terrorist group claimed that she had been killed in a Jordanian airstrike on ISIS positions in Raqqa, a city in the northeast bank of the Euphrates River. The White House and Jordan government both deemed the claim unfounded. Mueller was 26 years old at the time of her death. Her body was never recovered.
Following reports of the death of Baghdadi, who was killed this weekend during a military raid in Syria, Marsha Mueller on Sunday praised Trump and the U.S. soldiers involved for executing the mission.
“We are so grateful for them,” she said, according to The Arizona Republic. “I still say Kayla should be here, and if Obama had been as decisive as President Trump, maybe she would have been.”
“For me what matters most I’m hoping now we will finally get the answers we have been asking for all along,” Marsha Mueller added. “I think this administration truly might help us. I don’t think they are as closed about what happened.”
Mueller’s father, Carl Mueller, also thanked Trump for mentioning his daughter during his press conference on Sunday morning, where he confirmed Baghdadi’s death. “He knows her story. He’s been briefed on it, and he knows, and that’s important to me,” he said. “I don’t think anything would have stopped him from getting this guy.”
Newsweek first reported on Saturday that Trump had ordered the killing of Baghdadi, which officials confirmed was successful. Kurdish General Mazloum Abdi praised the “successful” operation hours later.
“She was held in many prisons,” Carl Mueller said on Sunday. “She was held in solitary confinement. She was tortured. She was intimidated. She was ultimately raped by al-Baghdadi himself.”
In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press earlier today, White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien revealed that the U.S. military operation which resulted in Baghdadi’s death had been named after Mueller. “The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff named the operation that took down al-Baghdadi after Kayla Mueller, after what she had suffered,” he said.
Newsweek reached out to the Mueller family but is still awaiting comment. This story will be updated if more information is revealed.
Mandel Ngan/Getty
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