1. In 2015, ISIS claimed that American aid worker Kayla Mueller, whom they were holding hostage, was killed in an airstrike. Ever since, questions have remained as to how the young woman died & if she died at all. Her parents have now received info indicating Baghdadi killed her.
2. @adamgoldmanNYT and I were allowed to read the transcript of an interview the Muellers did in conjunction with @Ali_H_Soufan of Umm Sayyaf, the woman in whose house Kayla Mueller was held and raped by Baghdadi at the end of 2014: nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/…
@adamgoldmanNYT @Ali_H_Soufan 3. Umm Sayyaf, who was captured in a raid explains that Kayla was held in her home in the Syrian town of Shaddadi until Dec 2014. That's when Baghdadi came to take her away after the Yazidi girls held alongside her escaped through a window in the room where they were incarcerated
@adamgoldmanNYT @Ali_H_Soufan 4. That timeline matches what the Yazidi girls who had been imprisoned alongside Kayla told me after they escaped. They described how they fasted for days in order to fit through the tiny opening. Kayla refused to come, they said, worried that her white skin would give them away
@adamgoldmanNYT @Ali_H_Soufan 5. That's the last time anyone I've been able to interview had eyes on Kayla: December 2014. By February 2015 she's declared dead in the airstrike. The parents are sent photographs of Kayla, showing her with blood on her face and a large gash on her cheek. Here's the problem:
@adamgoldmanNYT @Ali_H_Soufan 6. The pictures, which the Muellers showed to experts, are not conclusive. It's not even clear if Kayla is dead, much less that she died in an airstrike. When the parents called the Coalition, they were told there were no Jordanian airstrikes in that period, as ISIS had claimed.
@adamgoldmanNYT @Ali_H_Soufan 7. Umm Sayyaf fills in the rest in an account that has not been corroborated: She says that her husband, who was one of Baghdadi's lieutenants, told her that Kayla had identified both Baghdadi and his No. 2, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, and was executed as a security measure.
@adamgoldmanNYT @Ali_H_Soufan 8. The way in which the US government handled the captivity of Americans held by ISIS continues to be divisive. The Muellers feel let down by the administration, which they say missed numerous opportunities to get their daughter out.
@adamgoldmanNYT @Ali_H_Soufan 9. Frustrated by the lack of answers - including the US' assertion that Kayla was dead even as they told the Muellers that they couldn't confirm her cause of death - led the parents to mount a private search. Umm Sayyaf was interrogated by American forces.
@adamgoldmanNYT @Ali_H_Soufan 10. But it appears it wasn't until the Muellers traveled across the world with the help of @Ali_H_Soufan to interview her themselves that this crucial detail about Baghdadi's alleged role in Kayla's death emerged. This quote from Kayla's mom is gutting. May they find answers: 
