German Islamic State bride faces terrorism charges

German federal prosecutors say they've arrested a 46-year-old German woman on terrorism charges as she attempted to return to the country after marrying an Islamic State fighter and living in Iraqi homes seized by the extremist group.

Mine K., whose last name wasn't provided in line with German privacy laws, was arrested at the Cologne airport on Wednesday on charges of membership in a foreign terrorist organisation, prosecutors said.

She's accused of marrying an IS fighter in a January, 2015 video-call ceremony from Germany and joining him in Turkey the next month.

After spending time in Syria, they ended up in Tal Afar in Iraq, and lived in a house seized by the group.

Prosecutors say the woman decided to return home through Turkey after her husband was killed in mid-2015.

IS fighters swept into Iraq in the summer of 2014, taking control of nearly a third of the country. At the height of the group's power its self-proclaimed caliphate stretched from the edges of Aleppo in Syria to just north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

With its physical caliphate largely destroyed, IS is transforming from a "proto-state" to a covert "terrorist" network, "a process that is most advanced in Iraq" because it still controls pockets in Syria, according to a UN report.

A UN report said IS may still have up to 30,000 members roughly equally distributed between Syria and Iraq.

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