Betrayal. Torture. Escape. An American Woman Inside the Islamic State

ROP ^ | JUNE 26, 2019

[robowombat]

Betrayal. Torture. Escape. An American Woman Inside the Islamic State

Samantha Elhassani is the first American woman to face terrorism charges after spending time in ISIS territory.

SHANE BAUEJUNE 26, 2019

This is an adapted excerpt from Shane Bauer’s two-part series on American involvement in Syria. Read the full article or listen to this special Mother Jones Podcast episode about this story.

In the plains near the Iraq border, I pull up to a refugee camp surrounded by a chain-link fence. For the first time since I’ve been in Syria, I see women with covered faces and flowing black abayas. Children scamper between rows of tents covered with white plastic tarps. The Kurdish official who arranged for me to come here said the YPJ, the all-women Kurdish militia, was holding hundreds of women who had come from dozens of countries to join ISIS. Most of their husbands are dead, in prison, or still fighting to hold the last scraps of ISIS territory. Many of their governments have refused to take them and their children back. Several Kurdish officials I’ve interviewed have brought up this problem. They say they don’t have the resources to hold all these people indefinitely.

Advertise with Mother Jones I am met by a Kurdish British YPJ intelligence officer with a thick London accent who is annoyed that I showed up and annoyed with Americans generally. I ask if I can walk around the camp. She says no. Can I take pictures? No. Are there any American women here I can interview? They don’t want to talk to journalists. Okay, I tell her. I’ll talk to anyone. She walks away.

I stand around staring off into the sky, trying to make out the languages the women are speaking around me. I hear German, French, Egyptian Arabic. A white woman approaches me. Her long brown hair is spilling out of a beanie, and there is a black tattoo of a kiss on her neck. She tells me she’d like to talk. Her name is Samantha Elhassani.

The intelligence officer listens in to our conversation. Samantha tells me she’s an American and a Christian and that she’d come from Indi­ana to Syria with her young son and daughter after her husband decided to join ISIS without telling her. “I was not aware we were coming to Syria,” she says. She lived under control of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria for three years in Raqqa, where she had two more children. She survived the American-led assault on the city, escaped ISIS, and now wants to go home.

In “Betrayal. Torture. Escape. An American ISIS Wife’s Exclusive Tell-All,” the Mother Jones Podcast talks with Shane Bauer about his encounter with Samantha Elhassani, her story, and her upcoming trial.

[rigelkentaurus]

I don’t believe a word she has said. We should never, ever let her or her spawn back in the USA. I would hope her passport has been canceled.

[hiredhand]

The article is actually at - https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/06/betrayal-torture-escape-an-american-woman-inside-the-islamic-state/

[tom h]

I agree. Even if you’re so devout that you don’t believe in divorce, that doesn’t mean you follow your husband anywhere.

He: “Honey, I’ve decided to join ISIS, travel to Syria, and fight for jihad.”
She: “That’s nice, dear, will you be home for the weekend?”
He: “Quiet, wench-woman! I am willing to fight with America’s enemies and die for Islam! This move is permanent! Alahu Ahkbar.”
She: “That’s lovely sweetie, so do you expect me to come?”
He: “Of course! Under Islam thou art my property. You will have to wear a burka, live in a tent without running water in the middle of the desert, and look the other way when I purify myself with the other women we capture.”
She: “Give me a few minutes, then, I’ll pack my bags.”

[Amberdawn]

I hope the YPG drop a bomb on her.

[joma89]

Once again we see weaponized victimhood to get an ISIS queen off the hook for the support of murdering Christians and Shia muslims. ISIS women are as guilty as any of the ISIS men.

JoMa