What foreign Islamic State brides think about guilt and responsibility?

After the March 2019 fall of Baghuz, the last stronghold of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria, more than 20,000 non-Iraqi or Syrian members of the group surrendered to coalition forces. Males were separated from their family members and imprisoned, while females and young children were moved to camps for displaced people. Although both groups have been in custody for more than a year, many home governments of foreign fighters still have not decided their fate.

There is a lot of discussion in media, policy circles and government regarding what to do about these so-called fighters and their affiliates, but the opinion of the fighters themselves is often absent from this discussion. And although the Islamic State members themselves could be perpetrators of one crime or another, their opinions and the rationale behind them should not be ignored.

Keeping the grievances and opinions of these people in mind is important particularly if policymakers are looking further into the future, focusing not just on near-term counterterrorism trials but also on deradicalization and preventing the group from remerging.

Surprisingly, the opinions of fighters and their affiliates are as diverse as those of experts and policymakers. Some Islamic State affiliates think “all males who still support ISIS should be executed” while others argue that the “majority should be pardoned.”

While some affiliates think that only men should be held accountable for what the group did, others think that it is in fact females who should be punished more. And while some approach such crimes as Yazidi enslavement from the more Western legal system and think that everyone involved in it should be held culpable, others still think that the enslavement was acceptable because it is allowed by Sharia law.

So to understand their positions, and the reasoning behind them, I conducted interviews with a focus group of western Islamic State women who are in a camp in Northern Syria and whose husbands are incarcerated.

The focus group members are not a representative sample. The group excludes those who still support the Islamic State and do not want to return to their home countries. Those who still fervently support the group either did not agree to be interviewed or did not have informative responses.

According to this group, the Islamic State was following Sharia law and, as a result, was just and legitimate. These adherents also claimed that their fellow Islamic State members would ultimately break them out of custody, and the women made threats to prison authorities and western governments.

I’ve had a lot of experience trying to understand the perspectives of women in the Islamic State. Over the past year I have been in contact with several dozens of foreign Islamic State women in camps in Northern Syria, and I selected this particular group of women for interviews because they represent different western countries where the debate about prosecution is the most acute and because they had varied reasons for not continuing to support the Islamic State.

Some of the women became disappointed with the group because they thought it was not fair to its members, and some women withdrew their support because of the crimes the group committed against local civilians who argued that the Islamic State acted contrary to Islam.

All interviews were conducted by phone either in English (three of the women speak English fluently) or in Russian, in which case I translated them. What follows is an introduction of the women and direct quotes from their interviews with light modifications for clarity.

Kimberly is an American and Canadian dual citizen who converted to Islam. She came to Syria with her Somali husband who was a recruiter and member of Amni (Islamic State internal security). She came to Syria to work as a nurse and worked in the hospital in Raqqa. In her account, her husband lured her to Syria saying that she would be free to leave any time, but it was not true. She tried to escape 11 times, and when she got caught, the group imprisoned her. She finally escaped the group in January 2019. She is currently in Roj camp, and her husband is in prison in Hasakah.

Umm David is a Russian whose die-hard Islamic State supporter husband from Azerbaijan was also a member of Amnia. He has been missing since the battle in Baghuz (he sent her a voice message on the last day of the battle, indicating that he was still alive, so there is a high chance that he is in prison in Hasakah). She was also an avid supporter of the group and wanted to stay with it until death, but her husband forced her and their children to surrender to the Syrian Democratic Forces, who now operate the camps and the prisons in Northern Syria. She reports growing disillusioned with the Islamic State while in al-Hol camp. According to her, there she realized that the Islamic State did not follow Sharia law and its leadership are not true Muslims, which she thought was the main reason why the Islamic State lost the war.

Umm Abdallah is a Belgian citizen of Moroccan origin who came to Syria alone. She married her French husband of Tunisian origin in Raqqa. They report growing disappointed in the Islamic State after seeing that it was not fair to its members and did not respect their rights. For example, when her husband stopped working for the group, it tried to evict the couple from their house.

They attempted to escape several times but were not successful because of a lack of money. After stopping his work for the group to support the family, her husband was selling food in the market in Raqqa. She is currently in Roj camp in Syria. Her husband was transferred from prison to Iraq and sentenced to death, one of 11 French male fighters who met the same fate in a series of trials that sparked widespread criticism directed at the French government.

Umm Sa’ad came to Syria from the Netherlands. She explained that she became disappointed in the Islamic State soon after arriving in Syria when she saw how the group treats its members. In particular, she was disgusted with the group’s approach to women—in the caliphate, women basically had no rights—and with the group’s human rights abuses of local populations (such as the Yazidi genocide). She tried to escape but was not successful. She is also in Roj camp, and her husband is in prison in Hasakah.

Source: Lawfare Blog