Speaker 1: Welcome to the Women's War, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: It's July two thousand nineteen, and I'm celebrating the end
Speaker 1: of our journey in Rojava by getting a tattoo. Since
Speaker 1: arriving in Rojava, I've been surprised by the number of
Speaker 1: tattooed folks that I've met. On our first full day
Speaker 1: out in kamiche Law, I asked a heavily inked a
Speaker 1: Sayish Man for his artists contact information. Kabat called and
Speaker 1: set the whole thing up, and so the day after
Speaker 1: our visit to the y p J training base, we
Speaker 1: headed back to Kamichlow to meet my man Jake, and
Speaker 1: I had kind of expected that this would be our
Speaker 1: last hurrah in Rojava. We had originally planned to spend
Speaker 1: this day visiting Al Hole, the refugee camp slash prison
Speaker 1: camp for Isis wives, but that fell through and A
Speaker 1: Kabat wasn't sure if it would be possible at all.
Speaker 1: With no more work to do, I felt like getting
Speaker 1: a tattoo in Rojava would be a worthwhile experience, and
Speaker 1: I was right. It turns out there aren't a lot
Speaker 1: of tattoo artists in this part of the world. And
Speaker 1: the guy that SI each officers set us up with
Speaker 1: was the same person who did all the ink for
Speaker 1: the y A t or anti terror units the YPG
Speaker 1: Special Forces. These folks are the equivalent of Rojava's Navy seals,
Speaker 1: and most of them were trained by elite U S
Speaker 1: troops to carry out surgical strikes against Isis are contact today.
Speaker 1: The guy who's going to take us up to meet
Speaker 1: the artist is a soldier in the y A t.
Speaker 1: Alon parks his van in the middle of a neighborhood
Speaker 1: in Comichelo, surrounded by tall, blocky apartment buildings, and we
Speaker 1: wait for our contact to arrive. A van pulls up.
Speaker 1: It's similar to Alan's, but newer and festooned with stickers
Speaker 1: bearing the face of a de la augelon on its
Speaker 1: front and rear. The driver has a fluffy mustache and
Speaker 1: tattoos covering his arms and hands. He is easily the
Speaker 1: most heavily inked person I have seen in Rojava. His
Speaker 1: most prominent tattoo is an M four assault rifle on
Speaker 1: his forearm. Oh my god, Chabbat says with a laugh,
Speaker 1: he looks like a mafia guy. We park next to
Speaker 1: each other outside a nondescript apartment building and we all
Speaker 1: shuffle out of our vehicles. The y A T Man
Speaker 1: is tall, well built, and wears a glock nineteen strapped
Speaker 1: to his hip. He leads us up the stairs and
Speaker 1: towards his artist's apartment, and while he does we talk.
Speaker 1: He informs me that he got his very first tattoo
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven after being arrested by the Assad
Speaker 1: regime for lighting a police car on fire. He spent
Speaker 1: three years incarcerated. The artist's apartment is about seven flights up.
Speaker 1: It's the only finished home on that floor. The doorway
Speaker 1: leading to what would be his neighbor's place is unfinished
Speaker 1: and the empty hole is filled with old debris. It
Speaker 1: looks like whoever was constructing this building stopped when they
Speaker 1: were about eighty percent done and never came back to
Speaker 1: finish it. The artist's apartment is nice, though, a simple
Speaker 1: and comfortable one bedroom. He has a PlayStation and some
Speaker 1: controllers in front of a TV, a swamp cooler, and
Speaker 1: a couple of empty beer bottles, surrounded by three floor
Speaker 1: level couches that line the walls of the room. He
Speaker 1: hands me his phone with his Facebook page loaded up
Speaker 1: and I skimmed through dozens of pictures of the other
Speaker 1: tattoos he's given. A striking number of them featured devout
Speaker 1: Christian imagery. He tells me that a lot of his
Speaker 1: customers are local Armenian Christians. There's also a lot of
Speaker 1: militant imagery tattoos that would not have looked out of
Speaker 1: place in an American legion. Meeting bloody, grizzly bear claw,
Speaker 1: soaring eagles, a hanged man, numerous rifles, handguns, and knives.
Speaker 1: Our special Forces friend points out his favorite tattoo on
Speaker 1: his left arm, of a V for victory sign superimposed
Speaker 1: over a Kurdish flag. He rolls up his sleeve and
Speaker 1: shows me a very surprising tattoo, an enormous tenage tall
Speaker 1: depiction of an American sergeant's rank chevrons. As a member
Speaker 1: of the y a t he trained and fought alongside
Speaker 1: American soldiers. The marine he worked with the most was
Speaker 1: a sergeant, and he got this tattoo to honor his friend.
Speaker 1: This soldier will remain the only person I speak with
Speaker 1: in Rojava with thoroughly pro American convictions. He considers U
Speaker 1: S soldiers to be his friends and battle buddies, and
Speaker 1: he deeply admires them. He does not think the United
Speaker 1: States will pull out of Rojava, likely because he can't
Speaker 1: imagine the soldiers he fought alongside abandoning him. I spent
Speaker 1: a large part of this trip debating with myself about
Speaker 1: what tattoo to get. In the end, I settled with
Speaker 1: something simple, the words bahladan Gianni on my right shoulder.
Speaker 1: It means resistance is life, and it's the closest thing
Speaker 1: to a national motto this non nation has. I'm not
Speaker 1: an expert on tattoo guns, but I have received a
Speaker 1: number of tattoos over my life, and my artist's tool
Speaker 1: looks new or at least well cared for. His ink
Speaker 1: is high quality, and it stood up well over the
Speaker 1: course of the last year. At least, he tells me
Speaker 1: he has it smuggled in from regime controlled Syria. The
Speaker 1: only part of the procedure that's less professional than the
Speaker 1: experience you'd have over in the United States is the
Speaker 1: fact that he cuts a hole in a cigarette packet
Speaker 1: and wedges the cap of a water bottle in there
Speaker 1: to use as an ink reservoir. I don't get an infection,
Speaker 1: so clearly he took the precautions he needed. Once the
Speaker 1: needling starts, Kabbat is fascinated. She's never watched anyone get
Speaker 1: a tattoo before it whirre does she finds it. Kabbat
Speaker 1: is also clearly intrigued. We beat around ideas for tattoos
Speaker 1: she might get. I suggest an illustration of the mama's,
Speaker 1: but she says that would look too crowded. Want a
Speaker 1: simple tattoo. That's good. And a few months after this,
Speaker 1: Chabat will send me a picture on telegram of a
Speaker 1: new tattoo she's gotten the name of her brother's anna.
Speaker 1: Jake and I sort of expected that this tattoo would
Speaker 1: be our last hurrah in Rojava. But later that afternoon,
Speaker 1: while Jake and I rest on our porch, Kabat texts
Speaker 1: us with some good news. She'd succeeded in getting permission
Speaker 1: for us to visit al whole. After all, we would
Speaker 1: in fact be able to tour Rojava's most infamous prison
Speaker 1: camp and interview some of the Isis brides and turned therein.
Speaker 1: On our first full day in country, we visited Judge
Speaker 1: Amina and toured one of Rojava's Isis courts. She'd talked
Speaker 1: a very good game about the importance forgiveness and humane
Speaker 1: treatment of prisoners. This would be our chance to actually
Speaker 1: observe the ground level realities of this justice system, and
Speaker 1: it would also be potentially dangerous. Ol Hoole is an
Speaker 1: awkward mix of refugee camp and open air prison. Thousands
Speaker 1: of refugees from the Civil War lived there, alongside a
Speaker 1: small concentration of ISIS brides and their children. These inmates
Speaker 1: live in a separate, fenced off section of camp. Their
Speaker 1: status is noncombatants means that they are given more leniency
Speaker 1: than captured fighters. They're allowed to receive guests, gifts, and
Speaker 1: even have money wired to them from ISIS supporters abroad.
Speaker 1: It would be a mistake to see these women as
Speaker 1: less devoted to the dreams of the caliphate than they're
Speaker 1: mostly dead husbands. Two weeks before our arrival, and ISIS
Speaker 1: bride stabbed an assage guard in the back with a
Speaker 1: smuggled in knife. Photos of the wounded man in the
Speaker 1: hospital infirmary with a blade shutting out of his shoulder
Speaker 1: went viral in the global media. Every new week brought
Speaker 1: stories of stabbings, attempted stabbings, and mass stone throwing. By
Speaker 1: ISIS prisoners against their guards. We woke up on the
Speaker 1: morning of July excited and a little bit nervous to
Speaker 1: see the reality for ourselves. Kabat and Alan picked us
Speaker 1: up early in the morning, and as we downed coffee
Speaker 1: and started our drive, I talked with Kabat about the news.
Speaker 1: Did you hear the news yesterday about what Rada one said? Uh,
Speaker 1: just that he was gonna like, regardless of what happened
Speaker 1: with the negotiations over the borders of the Turkish Army,
Speaker 1: was gonna wipe the IPG off the map. Essentially, she
Speaker 1: means that he's welcome to try. Kabat is confident in
Speaker 1: the ability of her friends in the SDF to protect
Speaker 1: their home looking up at the Turkish border fence and myself,
Speaker 1: I'm less certain, but Kubat's confidence in this matter is
Speaker 1: not based on any sort of ignorance about combat. On
Speaker 1: our drive to al Holekbat decides to show us some
Speaker 1: footage on her phone from a project still in progress
Speaker 1: of her embedded with the female fighters of the YPG.
Speaker 1: It's harrowing stuff and it includes absolutely terrifying close footage
Speaker 1: of a US air strike. It does not look like
Speaker 1: the sort of footage that someone should have been able
Speaker 1: to actually record and survive. Kabat explains to us how
Speaker 1: she got the shot, how they get something from the already,
Speaker 1: so we have to know we have to come of course,
Speaker 1: you know. So I don't know, and I just want
Speaker 1: to come in out of that kid on the other
Speaker 1: side telling She tells us that she almost wasn't able
Speaker 1: to set the shut up because the place where she
Speaker 1: was positioning her camera was so exposed to ISAs sniper
Speaker 1: fire that one of the YPG officers didn't want to
Speaker 1: allow her to go out. I have a because you
Speaker 1: have to sit down for a child. I have to,
Speaker 1: as you was gonna, I have to put the camera.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I will not stand. Oh I know
Speaker 1: there is a fucking sniper. Then, I'm telling you I
Speaker 1: was gonna just put the Camira has that I love
Speaker 1: that I'm not here for That's the first time I've
Speaker 1: heard you say fuck. We drive on through more yellow,
Speaker 1: rolling fields, past green orchards, over burned scars, and around
Speaker 1: small towns. Finally we reached the camp. Our whole stretches
Speaker 1: from horizon to horizon. Seventy tho people live here. It
Speaker 1: is in a or misplace, a refugee camp the size
Speaker 1: of burning man. As we take it in, Jake calls
Speaker 1: it the Islamic state of al Hole. Kabat replies exactly.
Speaker 1: Jake hands me his phone and shows me an open
Speaker 1: Telegram channel used by many of the Isis brides in
Speaker 1: this camp. Telegram is a social media app that allows
Speaker 1: for encrypted communication. After Facebook and Twitter successfully purged most
Speaker 1: ISIS accounts, Telegram became a popular gathering place. The Isis
Speaker 1: brides of al Hole use it to organize fundraising from
Speaker 1: supporters abroad and to plan attacks on guards and visiting journalists.
Speaker 1: They share pictures of homemade knives with no apparent concern
Speaker 1: that they might be busted. Days ago, when we had
Speaker 1: visited the Women's Economic Development Council, I had had a
Speaker 1: little embarrassing snaffoo with my pocket knife and an assaish guard.
Speaker 1: Since then, every time we had entered a military or
Speaker 1: police building, Kabat had reminded me to leave my knife
Speaker 1: in the car. As a lan parked the van and
Speaker 1: we prepared to enter ol Hole, Hobat looked back at
Speaker 1: me and said, Robert, I think it would be a
Speaker 1: good idea for you to bring your knife. I clipped
Speaker 1: my CRKT inside the waistban of my pants and we
Speaker 1: hop out of our van and walk up to the
Speaker 1: intelligence office, where the Assaysh guards at this facility do
Speaker 1: their best to coordinate some form of security for our whole.
Speaker 1: We're let into a small trailer with a desk, two couches,
Speaker 1: and a mercifully powerful air conditioner. Two items sit on
Speaker 1: the desk, a crude, handmade Isis flag and what looks
Speaker 1: like a slam fire shotgun built out of PVC and tape.
Speaker 1: Jake and I are staring at both when our first
Speaker 1: source for the day, a young female Assayish officer, steps
Speaker 1: into the room. She explains that the gun was built
Speaker 1: by Isis children and has been confiscated. It was more
Speaker 1: likely to have been a toy than a serious attempt
Speaker 1: at building a weapon, but they took it anyway. The
Speaker 1: Assaysh officer tells us that she would prefer we not
Speaker 1: use her name, and she does not wish to be recorded,
Speaker 1: but she agrees to talk of will abide by those terms.
Speaker 1: This is the first time in Rojava that someone has
Speaker 1: refused to be recorded, but her reasoning makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: She has family in the area. Isis sleeper cells are numerous,
Speaker 1: and the Isis families in l whole regularly communicate with
Speaker 1: the outside world. The danger to her family is real,
Speaker 1: but she herself has been the victim of violence numerous times. Here,
Speaker 1: she pulled out her phone and shows us a picture
Speaker 1: of an enormous human bite mark on her left arm.
Speaker 1: Then she rolls up her sleeve and shows us the
Speaker 1: wound itself, partly healed now but still bruised a deep
Speaker 1: pinkish yellow. The story behind the injury is harrowing. She
Speaker 1: was attacked by a mother, a little girl, and her son.
Speaker 1: The mother shoved her to the ground, the daughter bit
Speaker 1: down hard on her arm, while the sun grabbed a
Speaker 1: nearby fuel can and doused her with gasoline. She managed
Speaker 1: to flee before they could light her on fire, but
Speaker 1: the whole experience was very traumatizing. After that, she tells
Speaker 1: us she refused to meet with any of the families
Speaker 1: without armed back up. Always they are beating us, she
Speaker 1: tells me. She shows us pictures of wounded internees beaten
Speaker 1: by Isis prisoners who essentially act as his Ba or
Speaker 1: religious police inside the camp. There are murders here she
Speaker 1: tells us, and many attempted murders. Cobbat chimes in at
Speaker 1: this point and tells us last time we were here
Speaker 1: it was worse than the front lines. The Assaish woman
Speaker 1: explains that Isis flags are banned here, but pointing to
Speaker 1: the flag on the desk, she informs us that the
Speaker 1: guards find ices propaganda almost daily, much of it is
Speaker 1: made by the children of Isis brides. Jake shakes his
Speaker 1: head and tells her, I don't know how you tolerate this.
Speaker 1: She responds, it is because countries don't care about this.
Speaker 1: There are sixty four nationalities here. Every day they are
Speaker 1: beating us. They throw rocks at us. Always we jump
Speaker 1: in the car to protect ourselves. You cannot do anything.
Speaker 1: We are obliged to drive in armored cars because they
Speaker 1: break the windows on the regular ones. Their countries will
Speaker 1: not take them back, so we are obliged to take
Speaker 1: care of them. Most Western governments have washed their hands
Speaker 1: of citizens who join the Islamic State. Their attitude is
Speaker 1: embodied by the actions of the British government towards Shamina Biggun,
Speaker 1: an Isis bride who had her citizenship revoked, which left
Speaker 1: her and her newborn child trapped in a refugee camp
Speaker 1: in Rojava. On March eight, two nineteen, the news broke
Speaker 1: that her malnourished child had died in the camp. The
Speaker 1: issue of what to do with isis Is foreign volunteers
Speaker 1: is one of the most complex problems left in the
Speaker 1: wake of the caliphate's collapse. It is easy to see
Speaker 1: why Western governments would want to abandon their wayward citizens.
Speaker 1: After all, many of them burn their passports and even
Speaker 1: renounce their citizenship, but doing so leaves these people trapped
Speaker 1: in northeast Syria, where the self administration of Rajava has
Speaker 1: no choice but to take the best care of them
Speaker 1: that it can. Unfortunately, their resources are scarce, and this
Speaker 1: has led to the nightmare situation where dangerous radicalized extremists
Speaker 1: live in the same camp as Iraqi and Syrian refugees,
Speaker 1: blameless civilians, guilty of nothing worse than being caught up
Speaker 1: by the vagaries of war. Since the Isis wives have
Speaker 1: international supporters who donate money to them, they're able to
Speaker 1: live relatively well, and their wealth gives them power over
Speaker 1: the non Isis internees. They also have the benefit of
Speaker 1: being organized, which allows them to exercise violent power over
Speaker 1: the other groups in the camp. Our guard tells us
Speaker 1: that she's seen Isis woman attack the Iraqi and Syrian
Speaker 1: i d P s. Just yesterday, an Iraqi refugee was
Speaker 1: beaten for not wearing a head scarf while inside her tent.
Speaker 1: A few hours later, they burnt down the tent that
Speaker 1: held a UNICEF school for children in the camp. Our
Speaker 1: source describes a constant drumbeat of violence. The Caliphate's territorial
Speaker 1: possessions have been officially destroyed in Syria, but the Islamic
Speaker 1: state lives on in these daily acts of hate. For now,
Speaker 1: the SDF and its assage guards have been able to
Speaker 1: keep the violence in l whole from spilling outside the camp.
Speaker 1: But everyone here knows that war with Turkey is coming,
Speaker 1: and the chaos it brings will provide the inmates here
Speaker 1: with opportunity. I ask our guard what she sees coming
Speaker 1: in the future, and she tells me it is like
Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb. It is going to explode into all
Speaker 1: of the world. The physical material in this bomb is
Speaker 1: the children of these Isis brides. Our guard explains, right now,
Speaker 1: you can see the Isis mentality in the children. We
Speaker 1: are not going to attack them, so they wield their
Speaker 1: children against us. Despite this, she tells me she truly
Speaker 1: does believe that it's possible to rehabilitate these people and
Speaker 1: even to release them someday. But any kind of de
Speaker 1: radicalization work in l whole is made nearly impossible by
Speaker 1: the sheer volume of people here. She also expresses deep
Speaker 1: frustration with the NGOs who come here to ostensibly offer aid.
Speaker 1: They've provided many of the Isis brides with cell phones
Speaker 1: and internet access in misguided attempts in misguided acts of
Speaker 1: humanitarian compassion. A few days ago, she tells me, I
Speaker 1: wanted to go into the camp with a captured Isis
Speaker 1: men and a ninja. Yogai told me I should go
Speaker 1: in without my gun. He treated me in Isis like
Speaker 1: we are the same. Jake says he wishes the country's
Speaker 1: making up the coalition would at least build a proper
Speaker 1: prison here. If they aren't going to repatriate any of
Speaker 1: their wayward sons and daughters, we hope, she says in response,
Speaker 1: they don't. Her biggest frustration personally is the fact that
Speaker 1: the Isis brides, being strict Muslims, are allowed to all
Speaker 1: dress in the long black na cob with even their
Speaker 1: faces covered by thin black cloth. This makes it much
Speaker 1: much harder for the guards to effectively police them, since
Speaker 1: dozens of women dressed in head to toe black cloth
Speaker 1: are all functionally identical. One woman can throw a rock
Speaker 1: or even slash a guard with a razor blade and
Speaker 1: then melt back into the crowd. It's a real problem,
Speaker 1: but the wearing of a na cob is an issue
Speaker 1: of religion, and religious freedom is protected under the Roshavan Constitution.
Speaker 1: The NGOs keep a tight watch over everything to make
Speaker 1: sure the Asaish don't restrict the Isis brides by forcing
Speaker 1: them to bear their faces. Every day. They are beating us,
Speaker 1: she tells me, and if they kill me, who will
Speaker 1: say anything. After an hour or so of talking, our
Speaker 1: interview subjects arrived outside. Before we came, Kabbat had informed
Speaker 1: the guards that we wished to interview any Isis brides
Speaker 1: who wanted to talk. Two came forward, and we will
Speaker 1: hear from them very soon. But before our Asaish guards
Speaker 1: signaled for them to be let in, she gave Jake
Speaker 1: and I a very serious talk. She wanted us to
Speaker 1: know that these women had rights, including the right to
Speaker 1: end the interview at any moment. If they did not
Speaker 1: want to answer a question, we could not compel them
Speaker 1: to do so. She asked if we understood, and Jake
Speaker 1: and I said yes. Then she bid farewell and exited
Speaker 1: the trailer. We would be allowed to conduct our interview
Speaker 1: in total privacy, with no guards sitting in there. From America.
Speaker 1: Trying to explain to them that we are from South America,
Speaker 1: asked you from the Caribbean. Okay? They were like, SI
Speaker 1: com com gotcha. Yeah. I was wearing a little trouble
Speaker 1: understanding South America. Can they take all the black people
Speaker 1: out from the interview? Is immediately surreal. Both of our
Speaker 1: subjects are very tall and covered completely by the nakab.
Speaker 1: We can only see their eyes and a thin sliver
Speaker 1: of black skin around them. But they speak like my
Speaker 1: Caribbean friends back in Los Angeles, the same slang, the
Speaker 1: same speech patterns, only they're talking about their time is
Speaker 1: willing members of one of the most violent terrorist organizations
Speaker 1: in human history. We came with our husband's UM's here
Speaker 1: making said we're coming here. Ra is a journey or immigration. Historically,
Speaker 1: it refers to the prophet Muhammed's flight from Mecca to
Speaker 1: Medina in order to escape persecution. ISIS followers use the
Speaker 1: word to describe the act of fleeing their homelands for
Speaker 1: the caliphate. Basically followed our husbands. He gave us advice,
Speaker 1: and you just followed him. And now we're here for
Speaker 1: four years. Four years when you came and to day
Speaker 1: to me in two thousand and was there was it
Speaker 1: your husband's that told you about this place? Did you
Speaker 1: see like in the beak or anything like that, like
Speaker 1: were the magic the beak? Was? Isis his premier magazine
Speaker 1: during the group's heyday, and it frequently urged its readers
Speaker 1: to depart the land of Shirk the decadent West to
Speaker 1: join the Islamic State. There wasn't really much dad magazines.
Speaker 1: But you know it was our husband's who was really
Speaker 1: the once who was telling us this is what me
Speaker 1: to actually for me when um in fourteen, I didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about Syria. You know. My brother who happens
Speaker 1: to be her husband, he was really athletic, he was
Speaker 1: a world boxer. He was a lawyer, very why educated,
Speaker 1: almost party guy, you know. And then after my father
Speaker 1: got killed, my father died in my country, my family
Speaker 1: just made this break turn around, you know, like I
Speaker 1: don't know, like we got this wake up call, you
Speaker 1: know he did. You don't know, really when people died,
Speaker 1: that's when they become godly then more or less, you know.
Speaker 1: So then we started trying to find a Slam. And
Speaker 1: then my brother came him one day and he said
Speaker 1: he's going to Syria. And I started laughing. I'm like
Speaker 1: going awhere because you know, I dressed just like all
Speaker 1: the Red Cross woman dress. I never worked this before,
Speaker 1: you know, cloves, and I never wore all those things.
Speaker 1: I was into makeup and pay persons and all these
Speaker 1: crazy things, you know, which I still like, but um.
Speaker 1: And then after digging up, I was trying to find
Speaker 1: out why, what's with Syria? What's with Syria? What's with Syria?
Speaker 1: And then I heard it's strick Sharia, which is what
Speaker 1: I like because my country. Yes, it's the Islam, but
Speaker 1: it's mixed. It's really mixed. Like one minute we see
Speaker 1: the Muslims in the mushy, the next minute and behind
Speaker 1: them the big truck for Carnivale and you see the
Speaker 1: Muslims weaving that he drivel like I was kind of confused.
Speaker 1: You know, both women were so friendly and casual. It
Speaker 1: was jarring ticket reminders of what absolute hardliners they both were.
Speaker 1: After all, who gets angry at carnival? So I said,
Speaker 1: let me try to see what Syria is about kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and then we opted to come to Syria,
Speaker 1: which was in November. Why are you why I like it?
Speaker 1: From what I understood before, it's let me see if
Speaker 1: you want to if you really understand what the Islam is,
Speaker 1: and I mean, if you really understand what it is,
Speaker 1: I think for me, I like it. I really like it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's balanced, it's not extreme or it's not
Speaker 1: killing killing killing, even think it's extreme and it is
Speaker 1: killing killing. You don't think Isis was extreme? Yes, some
Speaker 1: parts of it I found. I wouldn't say extreme, But
Speaker 1: some parts I think I expose myself to even my
Speaker 1: children to too much violence, for example, the beheadings and
Speaker 1: some of the stuff like that. You know, I think
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessary for me to show my children, I thought,
Speaker 1: And I told journalist before because I had an interview before.
Speaker 1: I can't remember I can't remember her name. For me,
Speaker 1: I found, yes, you could tell them, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: what happens when you do so so so so so,
Speaker 1: but I thought us I should show them balance you have,
Speaker 1: you should have rathma, mercy. You know, it's not always
Speaker 1: about kill, kill blood, blood blood, you know what, There
Speaker 1: is mercy and I think that's why now when the
Speaker 1: kaim so many children, so aggressive, even when you guys come,
Speaker 1: they were spelt in stones and alban which I hate.
Speaker 1: I really dislike it. She's expressing that she dislikes it
Speaker 1: when other isis wives and kids throw stones at the
Speaker 1: Sish and then the way some like how the parents
Speaker 1: stop to their children, you know, talk when you see
Speaker 1: them kicking? Come on? You know what? Then you wonder
Speaker 1: what what's the purpose? What? Come on? You know? So,
Speaker 1: But for me, Islam, whether you choose this way or
Speaker 1: you choose that way. You're a Christian, you're a Muslim,
Speaker 1: you're gay, you whatever, that's your choice, that's you, you know,
Speaker 1: but this is just me. You stand when you arrived
Speaker 1: in the Islamic state, how did it actually you've been
Speaker 1: expected at the beginning, because this Islam excited at the time,
Speaker 1: there was a caliphaith uh it it matched pretty well
Speaker 1: because I wasn't really exposed to much killers. We were
Speaker 1: in RockA and there were air strikes, but they were
Speaker 1: really mild, so it was still very much like my country.
Speaker 1: But on the sher it wasn't crazy. It was an
Speaker 1: extreme then please note that an extremist may not be
Speaker 1: the best judge of what is and is not extreme.
Speaker 1: We had a normal life now, it was a normal life.
Speaker 1: We had tea parties for jama parties, we had um
Speaker 1: what else. Yeah, it was just it was really Addie,
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, really Addie Irene. That really cool,
Speaker 1: you know, until all the bombers came. Then you got
Speaker 1: this week up call what am I doing? Where am
Speaker 1: I kind of thing, you know. But the beginning it
Speaker 1: was cool, It was calm, you know. You learned the
Speaker 1: day they found out a lot of things that we
Speaker 1: taught that we were perfectly before. You learned differently when
Speaker 1: we came here, you know. But even in the beginning
Speaker 1: that we're hitting people in the street, in the square.
Speaker 1: But that's the thing, we never actually saw these things,
Speaker 1: you know what I would you not know about it.
Speaker 1: You knew it existed, but we never witness yeah, like
Speaker 1: you would see the children. I don't like these things. Really,
Speaker 1: I knew it happened today. Then because I heard my
Speaker 1: neighbor saying, oh, they killed somebody in the square, but
Speaker 1: I never ran to I don't want to see it. Yes,
Speaker 1: my that's it, my son, because he's at that time,
Speaker 1: you know, the boys in the street, they just came
Speaker 1: back from school. Money. I saw this man being headed today.
Speaker 1: He was stung up, strong, up like this. So they
Speaker 1: store in this place. And I saw people being stone
Speaker 1: to that in my da but in Rapper and the
Speaker 1: earliest I was never, I never witnessing, but I heard
Speaker 1: about this. I knew its existed. You understand what kind
Speaker 1: of effect do you think that had on yourself? Of
Speaker 1: course a very violent one. You know, it was very violent.
Speaker 1: But at the beginning we all thought it was you know,
Speaker 1: we thought it was a uk. This is a punished
Speaker 1: mind for this, and everybody's like, you know, top beer
Speaker 1: is just the name for the one Arabic phrase every
Speaker 1: American knows, Allahu akbar. She's saying that the trauma of
Speaker 1: witnessing these executions turned her son into a more fervent Chihati.
Speaker 1: Next I asked how both women wound up in the
Speaker 1: custody of the SDF the end, and you stayed as
Speaker 1: long as we possibly could. And then my son, who
Speaker 1: is not applicating because of the house and his foot,
Speaker 1: well it went black immediately and irustrated. Well, actually, I
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what hit the house. Something hits it.
Speaker 1: I think it was a power Yeah, And I stayed
Speaker 1: in prouble two days after hoping it could get better
Speaker 1: because Bugoos is a name that lives in infamy here.
Speaker 1: It was the last territorial holdout of the Islamic state
Speaker 1: in Syria. So something explosive hits. Two days I realized,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't stay. I can't stay anymore, so
Speaker 1: I did. I made a decision that I would have
Speaker 1: to out. So I walked up. But initially a lot
Speaker 1: of people think that, um, the people who stayed in
Speaker 1: Bagos are like war mongers. They're like they send so
Speaker 1: much hate and they love. There were actually a lot
Speaker 1: of people who wanted to leave with the first and
Speaker 1: second Coodna then when I opened up, but then we
Speaker 1: saw videos and then some of the women example, and
Speaker 1: one of my friends she said, you're going to pick
Speaker 1: a gate. They rape women and they do women. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of people who wanted to leave. They were
Speaker 1: afraid to come here. And that's why nobody that that's
Speaker 1: why few people left before until it got too extreme
Speaker 1: that colors people just picked up. There's like colors going
Speaker 1: to ram then whatever. We already exposed to whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: So that's when people left. But I really dislike hearing
Speaker 1: people say, oh, these back, these people, these back, these people.
Speaker 1: There are some people who really wanted to leave and
Speaker 1: were a italy because of the situation that we talked
Speaker 1: we would have been exposed to here and did you
Speaker 1: did you believe that as well? But like if you
Speaker 1: were casted by the STF that it was because remember
Speaker 1: we exposed to the Islamic safe for a very long while.
Speaker 1: And if you see uh Kaffir or Pika king, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call them, the next thing is he
Speaker 1: going to think they're going to abuse you automatically. And
Speaker 1: then we're thinking, okay, the women will treat you like
Speaker 1: this and the man's going to repe here and they
Speaker 1: leave you to start when they leave you like so
Speaker 1: a lot of people were afraid, what's the reality? What's
Speaker 1: it like here? What do you care that I saw?
Speaker 1: It wasn't like that. I would like for a situation
Speaker 1: where we were starving to that literally starving to death,
Speaker 1: and it was a massacre every day, someone next to you,
Speaker 1: walking over someone's body, someone's hand. So here it's actually
Speaker 1: you're living, and you know ex camel by far, it's
Speaker 1: much there. Would you much different? Would you say the
Speaker 1: SDF the guard to your respect, your your human rights.
Speaker 1: I won't say the guards at all. I would say
Speaker 1: red cross that I because I think once what the
Speaker 1: Red Crosses around or Red cress Land or whoever. You
Speaker 1: see a difference in the guards to be here when
Speaker 1: these people are not around to monitor their actions than
Speaker 1: the peak women shut a boy in his hands pelting stones, which,
Speaker 1: as I said, I really hate, you know, but that's
Speaker 1: not I don't think. I think that was a little drastic,
Speaker 1: you know, shooting him in his hand. But I can
Speaker 1: understand how how ingrediable, because I myself hate it. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes the wo mental children, you know pelled, they like
Speaker 1: when the trucks are going, pell them with stones, or
Speaker 1: pell the mustache fowl because the calf, the caffe, the caffer.
Speaker 1: But if you think about it, even that is rough
Speaker 1: from allot you know, that is almosty from allow to
Speaker 1: be a monsa who was still treating you well, which
Speaker 1: I think is from a lot. You know what, I
Speaker 1: come and be killed, husband's killed this one, or you
Speaker 1: know you family killed this will killed their parents and whatever,
Speaker 1: and they still have more see which I think is
Speaker 1: pellstones pelt. It doesn't make sense. And at the end
Speaker 1: of the day you you pelled misstach for you all
Speaker 1: these things and then your child end of the tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And it was clear that both of our interviewees were
Speaker 1: different levels of radicalized. I'm sure you've picked up on
Speaker 1: it too. The quieter one seemed to be watching her
Speaker 1: loquacious friend. She spoke up to let us know that
Speaker 1: the STF guards were vicious, but quieted down while her
Speaker 1: companion explained why it wasn't so unreasonable for a guard
Speaker 1: to have shot a boy in the hand for pelting
Speaker 1: him with rocks. She credited Allah for the mercy she
Speaker 1: and her fellow captives experienced here, acknowledging that she and
Speaker 1: her fellow dash He's had killed family members of many
Speaker 1: of the guards, and that their treatment by comparison had
Speaker 1: been gentle. It was as close to a ringing endorsement
Speaker 1: as a prisoner of war is likely to give. In fact,
Speaker 1: the more we talked, the clear it became that at
Speaker 1: least one of these women feared her fellow detainees more
Speaker 1: than the guards. Even how you guys picked us up.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if I go back home and he's sitting
Speaker 1: coming out of the vehicle, now we're going to think
Speaker 1: we are just so. You know, you talk to the kaffir,
Speaker 1: and that means you told them something. And that's why
Speaker 1: so many women are hesitant to you know, when they
Speaker 1: see they're walking up as a direction. I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: you know, because they don't want to be seen with
Speaker 1: two guys because of that reason. Next thing you know,
Speaker 1: you're kind is being bullied to. Your child's killed somewhere.
Speaker 1: I should note here that kafar is an Islamic slang
Speaker 1: term for nonbeliever. I asked next what both women wanted
Speaker 1: for their lives after this. They expressed a desire to
Speaker 1: return home and live a normal life. You deserve that, though,
Speaker 1: like you've been a part of a group that have
Speaker 1: flaughtered people, traded women as slaves, killed people's children. There's
Speaker 1: eleven thousand march from the YEPG that have died from
Speaker 1: a stop the Islamic state. You know, I don't need
Speaker 1: to be rude, but like you, I realistically I agree
Speaker 1: with you. I mean, why should you deserve that? Sometimes
Speaker 1: the sisters a boy the gate that kwats and they're like, um,
Speaker 1: open the gate, open, They open the gate. These guys
Speaker 1: don't have no rama, And I'm like, what rama? Rama
Speaker 1: is an Islamic term that means mercy. We kill these
Speaker 1: people husband's, the wives, the children rahma. I'm like, come on,
Speaker 1: that's kind of thing. And then but at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's not a one sided killing. The killing has come
Speaker 1: from both sides. I've lost two husbands, so what what
Speaker 1: what like? How do you look at it now? But
Speaker 1: both sets up times? So therefore what picture? And then
Speaker 1: after you say bags, I don't think I could let
Speaker 1: necessarily say dish was behind was a madness? Was massacre?
Speaker 1: I didn't think, well what what? What was like? The
Speaker 1: my mental I think my mentor is gone. It was crazy.
Speaker 1: Banks was crazy to have a clean actually shoot at
Speaker 1: you that even you to know, like the certain noises
Speaker 1: I hear. I'm still like, there was an orphanage with
Speaker 1: your team children and they bomb the orphanage. Come on,
Speaker 1: they bombed my children hospital, they bomb who time fighting
Speaker 1: was happening? It was just very careful because you don't
Speaker 1: want to come to us yesterday, because you want to stay,
Speaker 1: We're going to shoot at you constantly and kill children.
Speaker 1: How to me, how do you justify that part? But
Speaker 1: no one will see it that way? You on the
Speaker 1: song now when you look at how you've been traded
Speaker 1: after being captured by the STF. If the war had
Speaker 1: gone the other way and your site had one and
Speaker 1: captured them, how do you think they would have been treated? Honestly,
Speaker 1: I can't see because you never arrested me as a
Speaker 1: girl girl, you know, as a as a note about
Speaker 1: local normal citizen. For me, because I grew up my
Speaker 1: pack listen I did was psychology and social work before,
Speaker 1: so I haven't really I know, balanced and opened a
Speaker 1: lot of things, you know, like for example, one of
Speaker 1: the gymerlists game and I hugged her when she left,
Speaker 1: you know, Hi, by I see the money street high
Speaker 1: are we going? So for me, I will treat you
Speaker 1: the same that for me, I don't know about them.
Speaker 1: For me, this is my personality. I'm a very happy,
Speaker 1: go lucky place and that's me. Whatever you choose to
Speaker 1: do with your life, that's you. But obviously I would
Speaker 1: try to introduce you to Islam kind of thing. You know,
Speaker 1: I was good. Well, I mean if it weren't Muslim
Speaker 1: that I don't know what you know? Okay, what about us,
Speaker 1: we're worked Western journalists. You guys cut the heads off.
Speaker 1: Of course a few weren't Western journalist and we're not Muslim. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would really dealt with you. See, I don't know
Speaker 1: how the man yet in terms of the man, how
Speaker 1: the man tells me things? You just saw to be
Speaker 1: headings at the television and ever you come on. You
Speaker 1: knew you James Foley was bad. Like we were reporting
Speaker 1: in this region around the same time. Like I knew
Speaker 1: if I was captured, that's what was going to happen
Speaker 1: to me. Especially if you were on the other side.
Speaker 1: I would imagine to stay. But everyone's cases not the same.
Speaker 1: That's as much as I could see, So I can't say, yes,
Speaker 1: you would have been killed. Men the men, and they
Speaker 1: never exposed us like a husband's. They never really exposed
Speaker 1: as someone. Both women had a tendency to waffle when
Speaker 1: we pressed them directly on Islamic state atrocities and the
Speaker 1: fact that if our situations had been reversed, Jake Cabot
Speaker 1: and I would not have known nearly so much mercy
Speaker 1: as they now enjoyed, you know, like um, like did
Speaker 1: they never exposed? That's what all the men would deal with?
Speaker 1: The men kind of thing, you know. So I really
Speaker 1: don't just see the videos of it or what hav
Speaker 1: in the cases and then we would find them. But
Speaker 1: in terms of the women, I can tell you who
Speaker 1: I would be with you, do you understand? But in
Speaker 1: terms of the many, I think you would have been beheaded. Honestly,
Speaker 1: does any of that kind of the brutality of the
Speaker 1: of of what was going on there, does any of
Speaker 1: that make you rethink your decision to be a part
Speaker 1: of it? Um, I don't even know what it starts.
Speaker 1: Ye oh no, that's a big question given all you've
Speaker 1: been through. I don't really need to think about that question,
Speaker 1: because I've seen it come to the brutality come towards
Speaker 1: us as well. And this is so I don't know
Speaker 1: what I know what I want to say, because I've
Speaker 1: seen a lot of serious things on my side as well,
Speaker 1: which the world has not been the eyes have not
Speaker 1: been opened to this. Can you understand? Maybe? Why not? Though?
Speaker 1: Like just just like from my point of view. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like if someone if ices start up, they're cutting
Speaker 1: off heads, they're putting women in veils, and I understand
Speaker 1: you you don't mind it because it's your side of things, right,
Speaker 1: but they're pushing that on everybody. You know, they're cutting
Speaker 1: off a journalists head just because he doesn't have the
Speaker 1: same ideology. Can you not see how then that we're like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: killed him, Like frankly, you know, it's a war and
Speaker 1: we don't want that so as to be stopped. Like
Speaker 1: can you understand why the retailer you happened or do
Speaker 1: you see it differently? I don't know. For me, I
Speaker 1: never even like I'm here and you're saying this, and
Speaker 1: for me what I talked before, they killed it because
Speaker 1: you don't have the proper idol ideology I took. For me,
Speaker 1: I thought they would have exposed you to what they taught,
Speaker 1: the proper ideology and not just kidnap you and kill you.
Speaker 1: You understand. I don't know if that's what happened, but
Speaker 1: not that we're sing it. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: what what happened or if they I don't know. I
Speaker 1: really don't know. Some of the things. I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: we really don't know because they were captured with what
Speaker 1: happened in these prisons, what conversations, what chances from me,
Speaker 1: I don't legend all days it did to converted the
Speaker 1: religion they obliged it, all days it did to convert.
Speaker 1: When herbart says that Isis obliged the adies to convert
Speaker 1: to Islam, she's referring to the genocide that the Caliphate
Speaker 1: carried out upon the members of that religious minority. They
Speaker 1: did not like that. You know, I actually know it's
Speaker 1: two years Eily women. I met in Raca and they
Speaker 1: were slaves, a Bosnian guy and I can't remember the
Speaker 1: other person. And I got really good friends with her,
Speaker 1: you know, I remember that in the blue building on
Speaker 1: in one of them. Anyway, I can't remember. And from
Speaker 1: what she told me, she said that she really loved
Speaker 1: hustling a slave master and she accepted. Now that was
Speaker 1: either a lie or an example of a terrified and
Speaker 1: slave person trying to avoid punishment. In either case, it
Speaker 1: pissed Jake Cabot and eye off she and the other place.
Speaker 1: You know, That's what I've talked to at this point
Speaker 1: more than a hundred years who saw all of the
Speaker 1: men in their village lined up and shot and their
Speaker 1: bodies thrown into a hole. Um, what can justify that?
Speaker 1: Who's there? Far? Is that enough to justify killing all
Speaker 1: the men that they're cafar and some Yeah? For me,
Speaker 1: this war is never ending and it's on both side,
Speaker 1: and one side will only see this story. On the
Speaker 1: other side, we'll just see this on my way continue
Speaker 1: right way way is the right way. That's how I
Speaker 1: see it, and that's why I say, whatever you believe,
Speaker 1: you'll be your way. I'd be my kind of thing,
Speaker 1: you know, when I just try to keep the balance
Speaker 1: in between. We always be busy. It seems to me
Speaker 1: though that I'm sure that there's there's bad things done
Speaker 1: by guards here, but on the whole, your your wealth fed,
Speaker 1: you're safe from at least nobody's bombing you, nobody's shooting
Speaker 1: at you. Um. The threats that you face on a
Speaker 1: daily basis are from other people that you were members
Speaker 1: of the Islamic State with UH and the SDF is
Speaker 1: allowing you. You're allowed to wear your new cob, You're
Speaker 1: allowed to continue to worship yesterday. That is what all
Speaker 1: the guys that it's my mood to Nicole, it is
Speaker 1: mam mood to wear black. It is mamluty went blue
Speaker 1: and all those things. You will see that they will
Speaker 1: take this off. Yeah, I think it just it's just
Speaker 1: a matter of thing. Yeah. As of nine months later,
Speaker 1: prisoners and al whole are still allowed to wear their
Speaker 1: in a cop It seems that you've been shown more
Speaker 1: toleration though than for example, if I or Jake wound
Speaker 1: up in the custody of the Islamic State, then we
Speaker 1: would have been shown or if you go sent to
Speaker 1: the Iraqis or the regime, Yeah, you wouldn't be seeing here.
Speaker 1: One thing, I just want to say that it's weird
Speaker 1: to me to you know, you're a black woman. Black
Speaker 1: we would have been impressed from start time and you
Speaker 1: just justified that your ZD woman it was okay because
Speaker 1: she loved her slave master, like just going on. I
Speaker 1: don't know what she said. I don't know the history
Speaker 1: of the z You're not the history of n slave now,
Speaker 1: but I don't know her ish. I never asked, you know,
Speaker 1: like what about the z DS. Why I just knew
Speaker 1: she wasn't slave. I don't know how fine it went.
Speaker 1: Anything wrong with having slaves. I didn't What do you mean,
Speaker 1: like how he she was a slave? F very weird
Speaker 1: that I don't know this very just was very unknownal
Speaker 1: But slaving Islam is not like slavery backing. There's you're
Speaker 1: supposed to. There's certain rules you have to follow. You
Speaker 1: have to show Rachman, you must feed them, and you
Speaker 1: must take care of the profound irony of black women.
Speaker 1: Justifying slavery to two white men was not lost on me. Somehow,
Speaker 1: that didn't make it funny. But I talked to you
Speaker 1: slaves who claimed they were That doesn't mean what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that's a slam. If that's what they
Speaker 1: were doing and they were wave, then yes, these women
Speaker 1: could have taught a course on weasel words to an
Speaker 1: audience of congressmen. I suspect some of their care came
Speaker 1: from a desire to be freed eventually and to return
Speaker 1: home to the Caribbean. Admitting to having watched executions and
Speaker 1: cheering for the rape of slaves. Wouldn't danger that she
Speaker 1: missed the West, miss the Caribbean. Um, I missed the
Speaker 1: beach for certain things. I missed my family there. Now
Speaker 1: not true? Would your mother think of this. I think
Speaker 1: she was my mother's against everything, but you know she's
Speaker 1: my mother's Christian mine, she's Muslim. A lot of the
Speaker 1: women in the camp parents at Christian keep from me,
Speaker 1: catalysm on these other things. People. But do you want
Speaker 1: to like if your country would take you back, would
Speaker 1: you leave this place and go back a lot of
Speaker 1: people from my country were to go back to think
Speaker 1: just what everybody know? You know? Why don't would you
Speaker 1: still wear the nicob if you went back to your country? Yes?
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't know how it is in Barbados.
Speaker 1: It's been four years were in it. So if I
Speaker 1: was more uncomfortable with so why not but to walk
Speaker 1: around in the street with it? Yes, you also be targeted,
Speaker 1: but in my country, I don't think it's Um, it's something,
Speaker 1: it's normal because they are women in my country who
Speaker 1: were ni cap you no one who wake gloves and
Speaker 1: all these things. But colors? What how old are you both?
Speaker 1: I'm two with the jury? Um, are you comfortable giving
Speaker 1: your names? I am Aliyah ap to Hack. You could
Speaker 1: just give a first name too, that's better Abby? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and Abbey? And you were born in Trinidad and you
Speaker 1: were born Barbados. Yeah, I feel like you were perhaps
Speaker 1: more missing things at my country. I missed my mom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was my best friend, you know still is. I
Speaker 1: guess what I really missed my mom? I missed that relationship.
Speaker 1: This is the most genuine emotion we see out of
Speaker 1: either of them during the interview, and I'd be lying
Speaker 1: if I said it didn't break my heart a little bit.
Speaker 1: Both Aleiah and Abby are unrepentant members of a genocidal
Speaker 1: terrorist group, but they're also still human beings, and it
Speaker 1: sucks your head up a little bit to think about.
Speaker 1: Aliah and Abbey made several strong protestations that they never
Speaker 1: sought to insfringe on anyone else's liberty. They just wanted
Speaker 1: to be able to live life according to the strict
Speaker 1: rules of their interpretation of Islam. But as we talked
Speaker 1: to them, it became clear that what they really meant
Speaker 1: is that they wanted the chance to live by their
Speaker 1: rules in a place where no one else had the
Speaker 1: choice to live any other way. For me, it was
Speaker 1: because everyone else around me was on the same page,
Speaker 1: which is what we all went talking to be together
Speaker 1: in a place where we all had the same Akida
Speaker 1: the same thinking. Here we spoke with a young woman
Speaker 1: who lived under ice is I think for three years,
Speaker 1: who went out in in a cob with a silver
Speaker 1: belt that was bought by the Aba and was punished
Speaker 1: by being lashed hundred times in her back. Do you
Speaker 1: think that's a fair punishment for the crime, even from
Speaker 1: you have Three different men had to whip her because
Speaker 1: their arms kept getting tired. We always about these things,
Speaker 1: and there is nowhere in Islamic list a difference between
Speaker 1: Islam and a persons you'll belief. Just as I said,
Speaker 1: is a difference between qualita and a difference between Islam.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting to me that Aliah and Abbey reacted
Speaker 1: to this story of isis brutality the same way many
Speaker 1: Iraqi Muslims I spoke to and Mosel related to stories
Speaker 1: of the Caliphate's brutality. The differences those Muslims had chosen
Speaker 1: to take up arms against the group perverting their faith
Speaker 1: through sadistic violence. They fought and died to put an
Speaker 1: end to this monstrosity. Aliyah and Abbey, however, joined under
Speaker 1: the Islamic state you Uh. They attempted to enforce a
Speaker 1: variety of laws which you could say, we're not you know,
Speaker 1: part of Islam is written, but that's still what the
Speaker 1: Islamics State tried to do. Whereas a government like the
Speaker 1: one that exists in rojaba Um, you can live strict
Speaker 1: under Muslim law if you want, but you're not forced to.
Speaker 1: Why would you prefer to live in a system where
Speaker 1: people are forced to live a certain way as opposed
Speaker 1: to one where you could choose to live as a
Speaker 1: Muslim or choose not to and not be punished either way,
Speaker 1: and not just recom I think on the this Islamic State,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it's forcing anything. You weren't, but other
Speaker 1: people were. Now I found very free. Actually, I think
Speaker 1: at this point we get to a very important truth
Speaker 1: about both of these women in particular and religious extremists
Speaker 1: in general. They are supremely selfish people because we we
Speaker 1: actually when we came from our country and went towards
Speaker 1: that city, you were forced And yeah, like what you
Speaker 1: said with the you know, I can understand that question
Speaker 1: that people weren't like the Islamic State wasn't just setting
Speaker 1: up a new country in an in the area and
Speaker 1: just saying we want to live this and everyone who
Speaker 1: wants to live this way, we can move here. They
Speaker 1: were they had an army, they conquered territory, and so
Speaker 1: people were forced to live a certain way. The house
Speaker 1: you lived in, someone was chased out with it doesn't
Speaker 1: does that seem wrong knowing the history of Islam? I
Speaker 1: don't see one, because hasn't that same thing happened in
Speaker 1: the history. I think that's if you need to know
Speaker 1: the history of Islam first time, you'll be able to
Speaker 1: put two one to together. You know what about the
Speaker 1: history of Islam. I'm just about being good to your
Speaker 1: fellow person. Religion aside, you chase someone out of their home,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'd be annoyed if someone did that
Speaker 1: to me. Like that's something that has happened from the
Speaker 1: history of from like time in memorial has happened from
Speaker 1: not just Islam. It's happened with Columbus. And then you
Speaker 1: know they chase the armor Indians, I would force them
Speaker 1: to live on in them. So it's something that has
Speaker 1: been uncle that's historical. Do you not think that's aple
Speaker 1: can be broken and we can make better societies that
Speaker 1: don't talking about this since I've seen the same logic
Speaker 1: used by fascist extremists in the United States, people who
Speaker 1: believe the colonization of the Americas and the enslavement of
Speaker 1: black Africans were both justified because other people in history
Speaker 1: also did bad stuff. This is probably not surprising, but
Speaker 1: neither of these women expressed any true remorse for the
Speaker 1: crimes that they had enabled. They did, however, grudgingly accept
Speaker 1: that things being what they were in tournament by the
Speaker 1: SDF was about the best option they had left. You
Speaker 1: want to go to Iraq, you would prefer to stay
Speaker 1: here with the SDF as opposed to that? What type
Speaker 1: of people? No, If we have to stay here, then
Speaker 1: the last isis prisoners sent to Iraq. A bunch of
Speaker 1: former French citizens had in fact been tried and executed
Speaker 1: immediately upon their arrival. The fact that execution is banned
Speaker 1: under Rojava's constitution was probably the only thing keeping Aliyah
Speaker 1: and Abby both alive. Our time together was drawing to
Speaker 1: an end, but I had one last question I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask them both. I you know, one of the
Speaker 1: videos that I watched before I went over to Ract
Speaker 1: the first time it was produced by the Islamic State,
Speaker 1: was a young boy, maybe seven years old, with a
Speaker 1: handgun executing a man and mosl um. If one of
Speaker 1: your sons were to take up jihad and at their
Speaker 1: current age, kill one of the guards here or me,
Speaker 1: or hurt or him, would you be proud of? Probably not?
Speaker 1: But how would you feel? I guess it's more open ended.
Speaker 1: First I would want to know why, because they're too
Speaker 1: far I feel. First I would be scared about what
Speaker 1: would meant happened to him. That's my first thing that
Speaker 1: I would feel, rather than know why did he do it?
Speaker 1: Because of course I have a lot of hate within
Speaker 1: me for people who have us here in prison. So
Speaker 1: you know, just the other day I heard some months
Speaker 1: some woman was shot, So I how do I see?
Speaker 1: Like my mental Like I said, I've seen too much.
Speaker 1: So I think that's it. If you guys were exposed
Speaker 1: to what we were exposed to, I think the courspens
Speaker 1: maybe a little. Maybe you may also see it from
Speaker 1: our point of view too. You know, yes, I agree,
Speaker 1: I totally agree with some of it. Thinks you were
Speaker 1: saying that some of it we been too extreme. But
Speaker 1: to see a child do that, then you need to
Speaker 1: sit down and find out why, what was going on
Speaker 1: in his what did he see that he had taken up.
Speaker 1: What does it respond Because we all came from, like
Speaker 1: I said, a massacre coming down to the end. A
Speaker 1: lot of people are angry. We have no guns to shoot,
Speaker 1: but we have no weapony, nothing, but this plane comes
Speaker 1: out every day night. We kind of have been exposed
Speaker 1: to it because we've both done front by reporting and
Speaker 1: people that are clashing with ices, so we've seen what
Speaker 1: they do doing. For I was in prison in Turkey
Speaker 1: with some Chechen ISIS and they wanted to cut my
Speaker 1: head off. So we have seen was pent down by
Speaker 1: an ISIS. Yeah, like we've kind of seen you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, We're not coming from a complete place
Speaker 1: of nativity, you know what I mean. It's never been
Speaker 1: bombed by an aircraft though, and I that seems like
Speaker 1: I've watched them bombed places, and that does seem like
Speaker 1: the scariest thing I can imagine. I'll say that there's
Speaker 1: a certain kind of respect that I have for anyone
Speaker 1: who's survived an experience like that. It seems like it
Speaker 1: would be it would free your sanity. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: was it. After used to face talk with ISIS, or
Speaker 1: at least what's left of it. We called our guard
Speaker 1: back in and she returned them to their tents, where,
Speaker 1: for all I know they still reside today. Our next
Speaker 1: scheduled adventure was a tour around the camp, but before
Speaker 1: we went off to do that, our Asaish guard came
Speaker 1: back in and suggested we might want to interview one
Speaker 1: of the non Isis civilians and turned in this camp
Speaker 1: with them a young person who was initially described by
Speaker 1: the guards as transgender. So this person we're about to
Speaker 1: meet is you would say, transgender noise, Let's not complete
Speaker 1: trans gender, it's just like you know outside. Cobot explained
Speaker 1: that the guard had good naturedly gotten some of her
Speaker 1: terms wrong. The person we were about to interview was
Speaker 1: a young girl who lived and presented as a young boy.
Speaker 1: This didn't seem to be a matter of how this
Speaker 1: person identified. It was a practical strategy for avoiding violent
Speaker 1: attention from the Isis brides to just to protect herself.
Speaker 1: They came from Aleppo, a city largely destroyed in an
Speaker 1: unsuccessful attempt to free itself from b Shar al Assad.
Speaker 1: So she came to Racca with her mother and her
Speaker 1: uncle's her mother's brothers. Okay, so she came with them
Speaker 1: on been yeah, because of as in case that was
Speaker 1: hard to understand. This poor kid's mom took her in
Speaker 1: her siblings to Rocca and into the domain of the
Speaker 1: Islamic State because it was safer than Aleppo. Then, during
Speaker 1: the U s s d of shelling of that city,
Speaker 1: her mother was killed, so she still with her uncles aunties.
Speaker 1: They drove her until they moved to Then they delivered her.
Speaker 1: They married her to her courage. She was years although
Speaker 1: she married. This arranged marriage lasted six months. She was
Speaker 1: thirteen and he was nineteen. Her husband fled, eventually abandoning
Speaker 1: her to the hell that was Bugoos. She lived through
Speaker 1: the last battle of the Caliphate, just like the two
Speaker 1: brides we've spoken with earlier. When ISIS resistance collapsed, she
Speaker 1: was taken into custody like the rest of the civilian survivors.
Speaker 1: The whole nature of ISIS and radicalization meant that the
Speaker 1: STF couldn't just release all these people. Many of them
Speaker 1: were innocent victims like this kid and her siblings, but
Speaker 1: others were like the ISIS brides you just heard from
Speaker 1: and their children, one of whom tried to burn a
Speaker 1: guard alive recently. You don't want those people let out
Speaker 1: to have the run of Rojava. This is why innocent
Speaker 1: civilians displaced by war are held in the same massive
Speaker 1: camp as Isis Brides. Our new little friend has family
Speaker 1: outside of the camp, and they tried to get her out,
Speaker 1: but her aunt and uncle live in Aleppo, which is
Speaker 1: controlled by the regime, and to make a long story short,
Speaker 1: bureaucratic confusion makes it impossible for her to leave now,
Speaker 1: so she remains here with her younger siblings, and since
Speaker 1: she is the oldest, she's made it her business to
Speaker 1: take care of them. This necessitates the disguise they got too.
Speaker 1: Managed to protect my siblings at the same time to
Speaker 1: serving them and helping the queue with them. Isn't just
Speaker 1: a man I can give the assistance pasta. The disguise
Speaker 1: also protects her. The Isis Brides have formed something akin
Speaker 1: to a mafia within the camp. The guards cannot be
Speaker 1: everywhere and there are seventy tho people in ol Hale.
Speaker 1: Being a young girl out of in a cob would
Speaker 1: make her a target, and they started the osest woman.
Speaker 1: They started to tell her, while you are not wearing
Speaker 1: the fullest as she said at that moment I decided
Speaker 1: to wear my to her dispoige appe. During her time
Speaker 1: under Isis she had heard terrible things about the SDF,
Speaker 1: so they will always liked taking us. They are they
Speaker 1: are if they were going to capture, they're going to
Speaker 1: converting to a six labor, they were going to put
Speaker 1: you on a prison, and always about things about them.
Speaker 1: She claims she never believed the propaganda, though, and she
Speaker 1: has clearly become a favorite of the guards here. They
Speaker 1: slip her extra food, watch over her and her siblings,
Speaker 1: and help keep her a secret. That's all that can
Speaker 1: be done. At the moment she leaves, cheerious can be,
Speaker 1: but Hobart, Jake and I are all bummed as hell
Speaker 1: about her situation. Sure I would like at least get
Speaker 1: it back to her aunt. To at least get her
Speaker 1: back to her aunt. Yeah, just why why? I don't
Speaker 1: know what she thought it would be her mom. Now
Speaker 1: that we're all properly piste off a disheartened, it's time
Speaker 1: to finally go out into the hurly burly of al Hole.
Speaker 1: We meet up with our guards, two armed sdfmen, and
Speaker 1: we head out on foot. They've had too many vehicles
Speaker 1: damaged by rock throwing to one a drive before we
Speaker 1: head outbat make sure I have my knife in my
Speaker 1: free hand. So we're about to walk through all whole camped,
Speaker 1: through the tents, through the market. We've got two WHITEPG
Speaker 1: guards with us, both of them armed with a K
Speaker 1: forty seven. If we're swarmed and attacked by Isis brides,
Speaker 1: the guns won't be of much use. One of our
Speaker 1: guards even points to his a K forty seven and says, essentially,
Speaker 1: if they come at us, these aren't going to help.
Speaker 1: It becomes immediately clear why this is Our hole is massive,
Speaker 1: filled with countless thousands of tents and crowds of people.
Speaker 1: There are few guards, and the maze of tents could
Speaker 1: discourage a crowd of armed Isis brides. At any point.
Speaker 1: They could come right out on top of you, knives
Speaker 1: and razor blades drawn. As we walk into the camp
Speaker 1: and a young child and I read Adidas shirt walks
Speaker 1: by looks questioningly at me. Ahead, I see two Josh
Speaker 1: brides and film the cops, one carrying a baby, and
Speaker 1: then a crowd of people. Further into the market, we
Speaker 1: walk past crowds of Isis brides, some escorted by guards,
Speaker 1: some not. Whenever I look at them, they flipped down
Speaker 1: the little face shield in front of their eyes, turning
Speaker 1: them all into uniform, eyeless masses of black fabric. It
Speaker 1: is unsettling, to say the least, particularly as we get
Speaker 1: further in. At several points were surrounded by isis brides,
Speaker 1: all faceless but staring at us. They look like ghosts.
Speaker 1: It is one of the eeriest experiences of my life.
Speaker 1: It is a bit like being inside the Islamic State,
Speaker 1: with our guards being the human equivalent of one of
Speaker 1: those tanks people sit inside to watch sharks. As we
Speaker 1: get further into the camp, we reached the market, a
Speaker 1: bustling square filled with large tent based shops. This surprises me.
Speaker 1: I've seen refugee camps in Ukraine, Serbia, Hungary, Iraq and
Speaker 1: now Syria. All of them have some sort of internal economy,
Speaker 1: but the market here is the largest I've seen. In general,
Speaker 1: our whole is dusty, but clean, orderly and well maintained.
Speaker 1: I do not believe anyone who has visited refugee camps
Speaker 1: around the world could fault the SDF for what they've
Speaker 1: established here, given the resources available to them. The frightening
Speaker 1: aspects of this place have nothing to do with how
Speaker 1: it's run, and everything to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: it hosts thousands of ISIS sympathizers and unfortunately, lots of
Speaker 1: children are trapped in the middle. Is Jacobot and I
Speaker 1: wander through. We meet a young black boy around ten
Speaker 1: years old, who identifies himself as an American. We're in America.
Speaker 1: Where in America? Are you from Trinidad? How do you
Speaker 1: come to be here? Where's your father? Now? Ye? Sorry
Speaker 1: to hear that. It becomes clear that he meant from
Speaker 1: the America's in that and he said dead not fall
Speaker 1: in Shahid when he talked about his father. The fact
Speaker 1: that he calls his father a corpse and not a
Speaker 1: martyr is telling the fury rolling off. This boy is
Speaker 1: palpable in his eyes. I said, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: air strike Joel. I don't know that I've ever seen
Speaker 1: more anger from a person. He walks off alone into
Speaker 1: the dusty crowd, and we continue our walk to the market.
Speaker 1: Is that's a market. There's shops, a pretty wide variety
Speaker 1: of products, dozens and dozens of stalls. Uh. For a prison,
Speaker 1: people seem to be about as free as you could
Speaker 1: expect them to be. We ask our guards to take
Speaker 1: us on a walk up to the walled off ices
Speaker 1: compound within the camp. It takes about a half hour
Speaker 1: on foot. As we trek, our guards greet individual internees
Speaker 1: they know personally most of the people. They stopped to
Speaker 1: speak to our little kids, including one chubby wheelchair bound boy.
Speaker 1: Both of his legs are missing from the knee down,
Speaker 1: the consequence of a US air strike. He looks like
Speaker 1: he must be in constant pain, but he's all smiles
Speaker 1: and laughter when we meet him. Is clearly a favorite
Speaker 1: of the guards. A small four wheel buggy rolls past,
Speaker 1: basically a golf cart. Two kids are holding onto the
Speaker 1: back as it drives, and one of our ASA guards
Speaker 1: yells at them, tutting that they might fall off and
Speaker 1: hurt themselves. The y behind this has made clear. As
Speaker 1: soon as we reached the outskirts of the Isis compound,
Speaker 1: we see a small crowd of guards gathered around where
Speaker 1: one of the kids we saw earlier is lying in
Speaker 1: the dust. Blood pours down the front of his forehead.
Speaker 1: Another child, possibly his brother, tries to help him up.
Speaker 1: When the guards see what's happened, one of them dashes
Speaker 1: in and grabs the child hosting him up on his
Speaker 1: chest and sprinting off to the medical center to see
Speaker 1: to the boy's injury. We head inside the compound. The
Speaker 1: Iis camp is immediately and deeply bizarre because most of
Speaker 1: the Isis brides and their children are foreigners. This place
Speaker 1: is incredibly diverse, with every conceivable nationality represented. The boy
Speaker 1: passes me and it shared with the Australian flag. It
Speaker 1: says fair Dingham Assie. Most of the children here will
Speaker 1: not talk to us. Many of them are clearly European
Speaker 1: or American. Though we see one white, blondhaired boy, perhaps
Speaker 1: twelve years old. His arm is bandaged. He was shot
Speaker 1: in Bugoos fighting for the Caliphate. We do not spend
Speaker 1: long in the little Caliphate. It is depressing here. You
Speaker 1: can see in the eyes of the internees how many
Speaker 1: of them are still loyal. As we exit and walk
Speaker 1: back to the assay Is headquarters where we'd parked our car,
Speaker 1: we see a young woman sitting out on a bench,
Speaker 1: looking for all the world, like she was waiting for
Speaker 1: a ride. My eyes are drawn to her because from
Speaker 1: the neck down she's dressed the same as a dashi,
Speaker 1: but her head is uncovered and she wears lipsticks. Sitting
Speaker 1: next to a pile of water purification tablets, a bunch
Speaker 1: of bread, and uh several sheeps of paper in a folder,
Speaker 1: she tells Coat that she is from Aleppo, like the
Speaker 1: little girl we met earlier. She decided to join the
Speaker 1: Islamic State, and she fled from Rocco with them and
Speaker 1: wound up on the killing fields of Bagoos. But now
Speaker 1: she's in ol Hole and she's won herself an elected
Speaker 1: position on the camp's local commune. I ask her opinion
Speaker 1: on the democratic confederalist system. Where is she hoping to
Speaker 1: go out? Lama is A I'm gonna stay in literatory.
Speaker 1: You don't want to go back to the regime. Is
Speaker 1: there a job she would like to do? Her training
Speaker 1: she'd like to give when she gets out Fisily had
Speaker 1: she wanted to join the military forces. All whole is
Speaker 1: not a place of optimism, But this last interaction, the
Speaker 1: final interview of our trip to Rojava, does leave me
Speaker 1: feeling optimistic. And I will need that optimism because two
Speaker 1: months after we leave, Turkey's invasion begins. Hundreds upon hundreds
Speaker 1: are killed and hundreds of thousands are displaced. The Turkish
Speaker 1: army occupies more of Rojava's land. They conquer the city
Speaker 1: of Sarakane, forcing the stf out of villages and towns
Speaker 1: that just weeks before, Jake, Cabat and I had driven
Speaker 1: through safely. Artillery fire lights up the sky around peaceful Derek.
Speaker 1: While Jake and I watch in horror from the safety
Speaker 1: of our homes in the west. Cabat risks her life
Speaker 1: to do her job once again, and as I typed
Speaker 1: these words, she and Alan are still okay. During our
Speaker 1: road trip, Jake and I had played Cabat an old
Speaker 1: Irish rebel song, go on Home British Soldiers. She'd liked
Speaker 1: it a lot. A few days into the Turkish invasion,
Speaker 1: this song goes viral among supporters of the Rojavan cause soldiers,
Speaker 1: have you got no great fights? The revolutionary spirit alone
Speaker 1: was not enough to hold the line, and so after
Speaker 1: the invasion, the military leaders of the SDF were forced
Speaker 1: to allow the Syrian regime and the Russian army in.
Speaker 1: There was no other choice with the Turkish army bearing
Speaker 1: down on their positions. At this moment, the Syrian regime
Speaker 1: is too militarily weak to enforce its rules on the
Speaker 1: people of Rojava, but Bashar al Assad has made it
Speaker 1: clear that he does not intend to let the self
Speaker 1: administration remain autonomous forever. The people of Rojava and the
Speaker 1: SDF have made it equally clear that they won't let
Speaker 1: that happen without a fight, and true to their nature,
Speaker 1: the STF has doggedly resisted the invasion. Jin War was
Speaker 1: abandoned briefly and then reoccupied. Kobani, Kamishlo and Derek still
Speaker 1: endure and resist. The teachings of Abdulla Agolan are still
Speaker 1: preached to young men and women at YPG and J
Speaker 1: training academies. The Mamas and their peers still continue their
Speaker 1: experiments and ground up social organizing. The ideas of Moray
Speaker 1: Bucchin have not been abandoned, but from where I sit,
Speaker 1: it is deeply unclear if this experiment will continue in
Speaker 1: the long run. As always happens in war, brutality has
Speaker 1: bred more brutality. The Turkish government has continued to carry
Speaker 1: out the ethnic cleansing campaign that began in Afron, forcing
Speaker 1: Kords out and bussing in Arabs. They have executed political leaders, tortured,
Speaker 1: captured female fighters, and carried out drone strikes on civilian targets.
Speaker 1: In response, Anti Turkish partisans have escalated their own brutality.
Speaker 1: On April twenty eight, twenty twenty, a truck bomb was
Speaker 1: detonated in Turkish occupied Afrin, killing fifty three people, including
Speaker 1: twelve Turkish backed fighters and eleven children. The SDF officially
Speaker 1: condemned the attack. Turkey blames it on the YPG. I
Speaker 1: cannot tell you who is responsible, but for days afterwards
Speaker 1: that old George Orwell quote from Homage to Catalonia ran
Speaker 1: through my mind. The fact is that every war suffers
Speaker 1: a kind of progressive degradation with every month that it continues,
Speaker 1: because things such as individual liberty and a truthful press
Speaker 1: are simply not compatible with military efficiency. But as of
Speaker 1: right now, Rojava still endures. Kobani, Kamischelo, Derek and gin
Speaker 1: War all still resist. It is a resistance defined by
Speaker 1: compromise and painful uncertainty, but it is not death. And
Speaker 1: Rojava's future is still unwritten. And as the terrible news
Speaker 1: of the last seven months has reached my door, I've
Speaker 1: studied myself by remembering that last interview we conducted an
Speaker 1: ol whole with a former Isis supporter who had been
Speaker 1: converted and liberated by the Rojavan's system. As long as
Speaker 1: this revolutions ideals can take root in the hearts of
Speaker 1: men and women, even men and women who once pledged
Speaker 1: loyalty to the Islamic state, anything, it's possible. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is she's not here. She's still got a lot
Speaker 1: of the dress on, but slowly getting out. MS no, no,
Speaker 1: I have a hope. When he said there is a hope,
Speaker 1: there is a hope if a LiPo the most radical
Speaker 1: isis Cyrian isis they are in this effort, spetting in
Speaker 1: the council and coming up. There are lines in this
Speaker 1: new system. I think we have a hope. Nat As
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Speaker 1: I leave chow time. The Women's War is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.