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Ms. Jabara, like many tribal figures, was deeply involved in the politics and conflicts of central and northern Iraq through her family, particularly after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Her father, Sheik Naji Jabara, was assassinated with a car bomb by Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a forerunner of ISIS, in 2007.

He was the leader of a provincial branch of the “Sahwa” or Awakening Councils, tribes which although Sunni eventually joined forces with U.S. and British troops to take on the increasingly extremist insurgency in Sunni Iraq.

Her uncle, Abdullah, was also killed by ISIS earlier this year while fighting to withstand an attack on the provincial council building in Samarra, one of the major cities in Salahuddin province and home to an important Shiite shrine.

Fighting in Sunni areas of Iraq has elements of a civil war within a civil war.

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While many Sunni tribes, particularly those loyal to Saddam Hussein, have joined forces with the militants, others have stood by the government.

Several tribal leaders, including those involved in the insurgency, are in Kurdistan, negotiating their next moves.

Some say they will turn on ISIS and drive out the rebels, but only after the prime minister, Nouri Al-Maliki, has stood down and some form of autonomy is given to Sunni areas.

Ms. Jabara was the advisor on women’s affairs and social welfare to the Salahuddin governor.

According to local reports, she had already killed several ISIS fighters before she died.

Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, sent his condolences to the woman’s family.

“The name of the martyr Umayyah Naji Jabara has been added today to the chapter of Iraqi immortality,” he said.

The Daily Telegraph