ISIS Luring U.S. Women with Cash-For-Babies Promises
'They are selling them this mystical sisterhood of going to
the caliphate', by Chelsea Schilling
Islamic State terrorists are recruiting women from Western
countries to fly to the Middle East, marry jihadists and bear their children in
a “cash-for-babies” scheme.
The depravity of ISIS Muslims
already has been well-documented, with their torture and murder of children in
Iraq, their crucifixions of adults and their use of women as sex slaves. But
observers are saying the latest report, how ISIS is luring American women by
promising money in return for bearing children for militants, takes the jihadist group to a whole new level.
Some Western women are recruited through a magazine called
al-Shamikha, known as the “Jihad Cosmo.” At least three women left Minnesota in
recent weeks to join ISIS militants.
“They are selling them this mystical sisterhood of going to
the caliphate and being able to be a Muslim in this idealized, utopian
society,” warned Mia Bloom, a professor at the center for terrorism and
security studies at the University of Massachusetts. “They are targeting these
young girls in a very predatory way – the way child sex abusers target young
children.”
Colorado woman Shannon Conley, 19,
pleaded guilty to trying to help ISIS
Bloom said female recruits are promised moving expenses and
cash for each baby they produce with an ISIS jihadi. But the women are banned from
fighting and typically serve the militants, cooking and cleaning for them.
Bloom also expressed concern that ISIS will use the women as
suicide bombers.
She said, while most women would stand out on a military
installation, in most other public places, people wouldn’t expect a woman to
carry out a suicide attack.
“If you change your tactics and target mosques or schools,
that’s when women are really quite ideal,” she explained.
The Times reported an estimated 130 women have been
recruited by ISIS, mostly through the “Jihadi Cosmo” and social media.
Female members of at least three Somali families in
Minneapolis have gone missing in the past six weeks. A 19-year-old from the
area is known to have flown to Turkey in secret before crossing the border into
Syria.
Also, a 19-year-old American woman from the Denver area,
identified as Shannon Conley, only recently pleaded guilty to conspiring to
provide material support for ISIS. She had been arrested while trying to fly
out of Denver to meet a Tunisian ISIS fighter whom she had met online. The man
proposed marriage and asked Conley to join him in fighting with ISIS.
The Times
reported one of the missing Somalians from Minneapolis “left home saying she
was attending a bridal shower [but] instead flew to Turkey.”
Another report, by the New York Post, quoted a European source saying that two teenagers who fled
the Europe to join jihadists in Syria had contacted friends to report they were
alive and pregnant. The two were
identified as Samra Kesinovic, 16, and Sabina Selimovic, 15.
“The duo, previously seen in photos brandishing AK47s, are
believed to have married a pair of Chechen fighters in Syria,” the report said.
“The two vanished earlier this year and were parading their involvement with
ISIS on social media – leading Austrian media to dub them the new face of
jihad.”
Austrian police said in the report they were skeptical. “We
have no independent confirmation that either of them are dead or alive, or that
either of them are pregnant, although we suspect both are married,” a police
official in Austria said in the report.
Austrian teens Samra Kesinovic and
Sabina Selimovic in a photo they posted online
In May, British sisters Salma and Zahra Halane left their
home in Manchester and went to Syria to wed jihadis. The girls called their
parents and reportedly told them, “We’re not coming back.”
Salma Halane, right, and her sister
Zahra are also believed to be in Syria with Isis fighters. (Photo: Cavendish
Press)
In July, several media reports
indicated ISIS launched a marriage bureau and even began offering honeymoon bus tours through the
war-torn streets of Iraq and Syria. The buses fly the black ISIS flag, play
jihadist songs and visit destroyed Shiite mosques.
Britain’s Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIS is
operating a “women’s office” in the Syrian city of Al-Bab so women may marry
ISIS fighters.
Tweets and blogs recruiting the would-be “sisters” are
believed to be written by Western women married to ISIS jihadis.
The ISIS propaganda emphasizes the “honor” and rewards of
raising fighters for Islam.
Umm Layth, who is believed to be a British woman married to
a jihadi in Syria, tweeted: “I will never be able to do justice with words as
to how this place makes me feel.”
She added, “Allahu Akbar, there’s no way to describe the
feeling of sitting with the Akhawat [sisters] waiting on news of whose Husband
has attained Shahadah [martyrdom].”
Layth also provided advice to female recruits: “Biggest tip
to sisters: don’t take detours, take the quickest route, don’t play around with
your Hijrah [religious migration] by staying longer than 1 day for safety and
get in touch with your contacts as soon as you reach your destination.”
She explained that a woman’s role is to
“give birth to the mujahideen
[warriors] and they are the ones who raise and teach them.”
Yes another report recently
indicated British female jihadis are running brothels
for ISIS, where women – such as kidnapped
Yazidi girls – are forced into sex slavery.
Reporter Ellie Hall of Buzzfeed published
an in-depth story on social media conversations
between young Western women who now claim to be members of ISIS. In a radio
interview, Hall said, “I found – quite disturbingly – teenage girls and girls
in their early 20s who have left their families and gone to the Middle East.
Not just to marry, but to actively be involved, as best they can, in this fight
against the Western world.”
Hall said one woman, who says she’s a former citizen of the
U.K., calls herself Jihadi Jane on Twitter and “posted a picture of the
beheading of journalist Jim Foley with the caption, ‘If this doesn’t bring a
bit of comfort and ease to your heart, then check yourself.’”
She added, “These aren’t women from the Middle East,
necessarily. You are seeing women from the United States, the United Kingdom
and from all over the world.”
Hall said ISIS’ recruiters remind Western women that they
will not be fighting.
“One woman tweeted to remind her followers that ‘there is
not a single woman fighting in ISIS. The women’s place is in her home looking
after her kids and fulfilling her duty to her husband,’” she explained. “What
was weirdest to me, as a young woman, is that these women went to the Middle
East knowing that they would immediately be married to men they had never met
before. And that’s part of the recruitment speech.”
The women leave their homes and join ISIS for the “the sole
purpose of being housewives, eventually having children, and raising their
children to be fighters. And the pictures posted completely echo this
mentality,” she said.
One blogging recruiter explained to young men and women who join ISIS how to
respond to their families’ concerns after they run away from home.
“The first phone call you make once you cross the borders is
one of the most difficult things you will ever have to do. Your parents are
already worried enough over where you are, wether (sic) you are okay and what’s
happened. How does a parent who has little Islamic knowledge and understanding
comprehend why their son or daughter has left their well off life, education
and a bright future behind to go live in a war torn country. Most likely they
will blame themselves, they will think they have done something. But until they
truly understand from the bottom of their heart that you have done this action
sincerely for Allah’s sake they will live in hope that you will return,” said
the blogger.
“Sometimes it would be easier for you to accept your parents
disowning you and wanting nothing to do with you. However when you hear them
sob and beg like crazy on the phone for you to come back it’s so hard. … But as
long as you are firm and you know that this is all for the sake of Allah then
nothing can shake you inshaAllaah.”
Another recruiter explained how male
and female recruits can get into ISIS territory and even trick Turkey customs
agents. A blog provided several tips and even a checklist for the journey:
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/isis-luring-u-s-women-with-cash-for-babies-promises/#H65RFgr15HP3zoKv.99
It was the Australian version of
International Business Times
that reported children as young as 10 were being trained to be “jihadists.”
The report quoted London Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime
Stephen Greenhalgh and said officials had confirmed that “young children were
exposed to ‘extremist ideology’ by their families.”
A video published by the Middle East Media
Research Institute shows young children appearing to
be just 5 or 6 chanting, “The Islamic State is here to stay.”
To Americans, they say, “Your grave will be in Syria.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/isis-luring-u-s-women-with-cash-for-babies-promises/#H65RFgr15HP3zoKv.99
Buzzfeed reports have documented a number of cases in which women and
children have been recruited by ISIS.
Said a new report: “Twenty-year-old Aqsa Mahmood recently
made headlines around the world when her parents revealed that she had run away
from her home in Scotland and traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State or
Iraq and Syria and marry a militant. … Like many young women, Mahmood has
several social media profiles, including a Tumblr page (which she has been
updating regularly from Syria) under the name Umm Layth.”
Significantly, the report noted her apparent communications
with “other like-minded women.”
“An examination of the accounts followed by Mahmood’s
purported pages reveal communications with many other young women who claim to
be ISIS members living in Syria,” the report said. “A Facebook search of the
usernames followed by Mahmood’s account yields similar results. The women of
ISIS appear to have established networks across social media platforms, which
they use to connect with one another and recruit other women.”
The report added, “It appears from the women’s posts as if
some non-Muslim women are kept as slaves.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/isis-luring-u-s-women-with-cash-for-babies-promises/#H65RFgr15HP3zoKv.99
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