Report. In pockets of Iraq and Syria, the wives of ISIS fighters stand for 10-minute, secret trials before being led away and hanged. Many of the women played no part in the conflict. ‘I didn’t even know where I was.’

written by Michele Giorgio

Topic Middle East and North Africa

January 15, 2019

Only a small percentage of these women joined the Islamic State for ideological reasons. All the others followed their husbands who decided to become mujahideen, or were forced to marry ISIS fighters. Today, at least geographically, the so-called Islamic State proclaimed in 2014 in the north of Syria and Iraq by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi no longer exists; however, the “women of ISIS,” or “wives of ISIS” as they are commonly called, are still paying a high price—often the ultimate price—for choices that often were made by others for them.

At least 4,500 women arrived in Syria and Iraq after 2014, from all over the Islamic world and several Western countries, with the intention of moving permanently, with the rest of their family, to the territories controlled by the men of the “Caliphate.” Many of them are now widows and have young children. They seem to be a........

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