Two more German women identified among group held in Iraq

BERLIN - 26 July 2017: A total of four German citizens are among a group of women who were captured by Iraqi forces in the Iraqi city of Mosul last week, a foreign ministry source said on Tuesday.

The foreign ministry on Monday said that two women were among those seized, including a 16-year-old teenager, Linda Wenzel, who had run away from her home in the state of Saxony last year.

The source on Tuesday said that two others had now been confirmed as German citizens by consular officials who visited them.

German prosecutors on Monday said they were investigating the teenager on suspicion of membership in a foreign terrorist organisation, alongside the three others.

German newspaper Die Welt reported in Wednesday editions that two of the women came from the city of Mannheim in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg - a woman born in Morocco and her adult daughter.

The fourth woman was born in Russia's Chechnya region and was last registered in Detmold, in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, the paper said.

It said German authorities were seeking the return of the four women, who were captured on July 13 and 14, and are currently being held in Baghdad.

The group of 20 women were captured in Mosul by Iraqi forces when they retook the Islamic State stronghold.