The family of a slain aid worker and ISIS prisoner Kayla Mueller on Sunday praised President Trump and the commandos who pulled off the daring raid that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — but also delivered a stinging rebuke regarding President Obama’s handling of Mueller’s capture.
Mueller, 26, was a humanitarian worker from Prescott, Ariz., who was captured while leaving a hospital in Aleppo, Syria, during that nation’s bloody civil war in 2013. She is believed to have been tortured and raped by al-Baghdadi himself until her death 18 months later.
The mission that killed al-Baghdadi in his Idlib hideout this weekend was named after Mueller, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said Sunday morning on “Meet The Press.”
“One of the things that Gen. [Mark] Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did was named the operation that took down al-Baghdadi after Kayla Mueller, after what she had suffered,” O’Brien said. “And that was something that people should know. But justice was brought to those Americans who were so brutally killed, as were others, as the president pointed out.”
Marsha Mueller, the woman’s mother, praised President Trump and the Special Operations commandos who raided the compound and told the Arizona Republic that she believes if “Obama had been as decisive as Trump” her daughter may still be alive.
Kayla Mueller’s parents said on Sunday that they hope the ISIS leader’s death will reveal more answers about what happened to their daughter. Even though they confirmed her death through pictures sent by militants, their daughter’s body was never recovered.
“She was held in many prisons,” Carl Mueller, her father, told the Republic on Sunday. “She was held in solitary confinement. She was tortured. She was intimidated. She was ultimately raped by al-Baghdadi himself.”
“She was held in solitary confinement. She was tortured. She was intimidated. She was ultimately raped by al-Baghdadi himself.”
— Carl Mueller, Kayla’s father