Tag: women

Women who join ISIS, are they really just victims?

The teenager who joined ISIS

Marlin was 15 years-old when she decided to travel to Syria last May.  She grew up in Boras,  Sweden. She wanted to join the Islamic State with her boyfriend and be part of the jihad. According  to Swedish press, when she traveled to the Islamic State, she was also pregnant. Allegedly she got “mislead” by an ISIS recruiter in Sweden who convinced her to make the journey.

On February 17 she got rescued by Kurdish anti-terrorist force, CTD, during a raid in Mosul. The girl, who is now 16,  is in Kurdistan and she will be hand over to Swedish authority. Her boyfriend, most probably at this point husband, got killed by a Russian airstrike. It is unclear what the girl was doing in Mosul, and why she was moved there.

A statement from the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) said the family was informed of the human rescue mission.

Most of the articles that have been published so far emphasis the “misleading” part, treating this girl as a victim. There is a sense of pity around them, as if we are unable to process their choice, so we tend to believe someone else forced them into the jihad. Some girls maybe so, but not all of them.

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ISIS women joining the frontline to fight

Something is changing in the Islamic State. Women travelling to Syria to join the terrorist group want to fight and they are travelling to the front lines in Iraq. This is the result of my latest reporting trip in Iraqi Kurdistan, where several military officials confirmed this new trend.

In Sinjar, one of the main front of the war against ISIS, both Peshmerga and YPJ told me about ISIS women having a very active role in the fight. I first talked to Beritan, a YJA Star brigade commander who heard a Daesh woman on the radio giving orders to men. “She was obviously a commander,” said Beritan while having a chai in her base in the outskirt of Sinjar city. Less than a hundred meters away Colonel Rafat Salim Raykoni said ISIS women are in Sinjar. “They are mainly snipers and work in logistic,” he added.

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Dear Turkey, do you really need water cannons on refugees?

water-cannons

 

While Islamic State militants are sizing more and more villages in Syria, at least 130,000 refugees escaped into Turkey over the weekend. Many more are expected. On Friday reporters pictured men and women praising for help and implored Turkish border patrollers to open the fences  and just let them go through. Through the UNHCR, the UN agency dedicated to refugees, they finally got the access into the country. But as soon as they got in, some troubles started, since on Sunday they closed the borders again.

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The Islamic State Human Trafficking Circuit

Adeba Shaker is a 14 years-old and she is one of the few girls who was able to escape from ISIS.  On August 2, she and all her family fled from her village to a nearby town, hoping to escape the Islamic State. But the day after she was seized with 72 other women and children. She used to live near Sinjar province. Adeba travelled through out northern Iraq on a sort of human trafficking route. She made about seven stops before she arrived at her final destination in Raabia. There she was supposed to be forced into marriage with a front line jihadist. She was intended to be a gift for them, but she was lucky enough to escape.

She was held captive for twenty days. During this period Adeba met many other women in her same condition. They were imprisoned in what used to be schools or police stations in different cities. Once they arrived in a place, ISIS militants would enter a room and choose three or four girls. When they were gone, nobody would see them again.

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Benedetta Argentieri

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