Two Sisters: A Father, His Daughters, and Their Journey Into the Syrian Jihad

by Åsne Seierstad

  Ayan and Leila displayed little emotion in the short conversations they had with their mother. They placed the blame for being unable to meet squarely on their parents.

  “You made a big mistake reporting us to the police,” Ayan once told Sara over the phone. “Now everyone knows who we are. We’ll be arrested if we return to Norway.”

  Sara sensed hope. Did that mean that the girls finally wanted to come home?

  “We can help you—”

  Ayan interrupted her. It certainly did not mean that.

  “You can come here instead! You, the boys, and Dad. We’ll welcome you with open arms. The Islamic State is soon going to take over the whole world, so it’s best to get here sooner rather than later. Before everyone else comes.”

  * * *

  One day Sadiq received a call from a blocked number. As usual his heart missed a beat. It had been a long time since the girls had been in touch. When he heard a man’s voice, his heart sank.

  The man greeted him politely in slightly florid, broken Somali.

  He introduced himself as Imran and sounded young, like a teenager.

  He was in Raqqa, he said, and wanted to ask permission to marry Leila.

  Sadiq got to his feet, unable to speak. His mind raced. A young man he did not know asking for his daughter’s hand.

  “Ask Leila to call me,” he said.

  Leila called him almost immediately.

  “Do you like him?” Sadiq asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Is he good for you? Do you love him?” her father continued.

  “Yes,” Leila replied.

  “If that’s the case, ask his father to call me.”

  Imran’s mother was the one who called, as his father was dead.

  “You will need to speak to my wife,” Sadiq told her.

  Men were to negotiate with men, women with women. Certain rules had to be observed even when all others were broken.

  Prior to Imran’s mother’s call, Leila had also spoken to Sara. She had only one question for her daughter.

  “Are you sharing a bed with him now?” Sara asked.

  “No, are you crazy!” Leila replied.

  “Okay, fine. You can marry.”

  Imran was British, of Somali descent. His mother told Sara he had excelled at school, being good at anything technical, a computer whiz. He was the youngest son in the family and had lived alone with his mother when his father died. One day the eighteen-year-old had stocked up his mother’s fridge. He had made several trips up and down the stairs of their block of flats carrying forty-pound sacks of rice, bags of pasta, and a gallon of oil and put it all neatly away in the larder.

  Then he had left for Syria.

  Sara and Sadiq made up their minds to like Imran. Not least because he had actually asked for Leila’s hand in marriage. Arrangements were made for Imran’s brother to come to Norway as a representative for his younger brother. Sadiq was to be Leila’s wali. The couple were married by proxy in Oslo by an imam.

  Now Sara and Sadiq had two sons-in-law in the caliphate.

  * * *

  In early 2014, the militias in Atmeh and the rest of Idlib were planning a large offensive to retake the territory lost to ISIS the previous autumn. They had had enough. Disparate groups were constantly making deals and cooperating, but ISIS never intended to honor any arrangements they entered. They wanted to rule alone. When in December 2013 they had lured a popular rebel leader to negotiations only to torture him to death, they had gone too far. It was the final straw and it united the FSA and al-Nusra. By launching simultaneous attacks on several ISIS-held positions they robbed ISIS of its tactical advantage—the swift transfer of small units to where they were most needed.

  In the space of a few weeks ISIS was driven out of Atmeh, most of Idlib, Hama, and the area east of Aleppo. When rebel forces attacked Tal Rifat outside Aleppo in late January, Haji Bakr decided to stay in the town incognito. He could have gained entrance to heavily guarded ISIS military camps if he had announced who he was, but the strategist chose to remain quietly in his home. The town was divided into two within a matter of hours. The Lord of the Shadows found himself sitting on the wrong side.

  The master of surveillance and spying was eventually squealed on himself.

  “There’s a Daesh sheikh living next door,” a man called out to a contingent of rebel forces.

  When the local commander knocked on the door, Haji Bakr opened it, wearing his pajamas. He said he wanted to get dressed but the commander ordered him out. Haji Bakr jumped backward, kicked the door shut, and shouted, “I have a suicide belt!” He then came out with a Kalashnikov and was shot dead. The house was searched. Computers, mobile phones, books, and notes were confiscated. Underneath some dusty blankets they found it: the blueprint for the Islamic State.

  Surrounded by low concrete slabs and red poppies growing wild, the Lord of the Shadows was buried in some parched earth outside the town, far from his beloved Iraq.

  * * *

  The ISIS capital was under strain. The rebels who had defeated the Islamists in Idlib were intent on taking Raqqa. ISIS deployed great numbers in defense of the city, which was subjected to intense rocket attack. Both sides suffered heavy losses, and there were many civilian deaths.

  The Juma family heard nothing from the girls for several months.

  It was not until spring that Leila broke their silence.

  “Broooother, how are things with all of you?” she wrote to Ismael in mid-March from the Fatima Abdallah account. “Well, here’s an update on what’s been happening lately with us. We are well. We’ve been moving around a lot but are now settled again. We don’t have a car anymore so it’s hard to get to a place to go online. We don’t have any mobile phone coverage so we can’t ring you. It’s been chaotic here lately but we’re still alive. Tell Dad I’m sorry for hanging up on him last time we spoke, we were stressed out and in a real hurry. WE ARE NOT TRYING TO AVOID HIM, CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE NOT ALLOWED US TO SPEAK WITH HIM. You have to understand, we don’t always have Internet access or telephone coverage and sometimes we can’t talk even though we’re able to go online. Btw the scar on my leg is soooooo badass. The plaster has come off and I’m learning to walk again, it’s sooo hard, I don’t know how I managed to do it before haha.”

  Ismael had difficulty reconciling her breezy tone with the months of silence that had passed. It was as though his sisters had gone on a weekend trip and had been out of touch a little longer than they should.

  “Talk to Mom&Dad, not to me,” he wrote back.

  “What does that mean?” Ayan replied two days later.

  She took up the thread where her sister had left off. It was not uncommon for the connection to be cut off and for answers to come several days or weeks later, as though the time in between was a vacuum.

  “I can’t face it to worry and care anymore. If you’re not planning on ever meeting us again then I’d prefer you didn’t talk to me. That’s it,” Ismael replied.

  “Get a grip. Of course we want to see you. People’s parents have come from all over the world to visit.”

  “We’re not coming to Syria, I hope you realize that.”

  “If you do want to come you’re more than welcome.”

  “To Syria?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have no plans on dying. You don’t want to leave Syria, we don’t want to go there.”

  “Whatever, all in good time. How are things with You!”

  “Ayan, I love you both very much. But you’re a big depressing anchor weighing down my life.”

  “Why?”

  “I suggest you get in touch with Mom because I don’t care anymore, bye bye, for good.”

  “You’re my little brother so don’t dare try to break off contact. You have to care about me!”

  “Do you want to say anything else before I block you and erase you from my life?”

  “Ismael! That’s enough! We’re family, are you just going to throw us aw
ay? We’d love to go to Turkey and meet you but we can’t risk being sent home! Consider visiting us, people have traveled here from Sweden and gone home safe. You’re acting weak! This is not how you are, Ismael!”

  “You’re like random people in a crowd to me. You’re nobody.”

  “We really need your support.”

  “I had two really nice sisters. What have I got now? Fatima?”

  “You’ve got two even better sisters. Stronger and smarter than before.”

  “I’ll make sure that Jibril and Isaq don’t follow in your footsteps. I used to respect religion but now I can’t stand it.”

  “Get hold of yourself. By the will of Allah both you and they will follow in our footsteps! Fear ALLAH and don’t try to misguide small children.”

  “Ranted the indoctrinated mouth. I believe in Allah about as much as I believe in the spaghetti monster, bye now.”

  * * *

  Something that had never been tested before was under way: the establishment of a caliphate in the modern world with people looking to the past for guidance. The Prophet Muhammad was the ideal, women sought inspiration from his wives. He had had twelve. “The Prophet is more worthy of the believers than themselves, and his wives are their mothers,” it states in the Koran 33:6. If the project were to endure, women would play a key role. Without women there would be no descendants, without descendants there would be no viable state.

  With the loss of territory in northwest Syria, ISIS expanded eastward, across the Syrian countryside. Black flags were planted where statues of Assad had stood, in the ruins of burned-out churches, on bombed-out Shia Muslim shrines.

  The girls had moved from place to place within the caliphate as their husbands’ postings required. However, their role in life had remained the same: housewives.

  Their situation did not seem to weigh upon them. Ismael, on the other hand, felt increasingly trapped in a life that at times did not seem worth living. Winter had proved difficult, he had been frightened, angry, depressed, and frustrated. Every time he managed to pick himself up, put the thought of his sisters out of his mind, and live in the present, a new e-mail, an SMS, a call, or a demand to Log on to Skype! would arrive.

  “So, are you ready for the exams. Have you applied for further education? Are you still working out?” Ayan asked, initiating a conversation at the start of May.

  As usual there was no mention of anything to indicate she was residing in a war zone. Ismael wrote back to say his first exam was on Friday, he had applied to a technical college in the north of Norway, and his visits to the gym had gone to hell without the money for a bus pass.

  “Watch out for wild reindeer,” Ayan wrote, adding that there were probably very few black people in the north, but lots of Sami.

  Ismael ignored his sister’s comment, choosing instead, as was often the case, to get straight to what was on his mind.

  “The reason I want to break off contact is that I find it very hard to relate to sisters who in all likelihood I will never meet again.”

  Ayan always dismissed talk of never.

  “I like to be realistic,” Ismael continued. “If you’re not planning on leaving Syria and I’m not planning on going there, then we’re never going to meet again, that’s just the way it is. If we don’t see each other within a year, I can’t face any more cozy chats.”

  Ayan’s response took four days, coming again late at night.

  “What makes you think this is a cozy chat, we’re siblings and that’s that. Doesn’t Mom stay in touch with her siblings even though she only sees them every four years?”

  As he trudged home from an end-of-school party at four in the morning, he typed in “At least they meet!”

  The conversations continued like this, intermittently. The sisters would write that life was great, apart from the heat. They were used to Norwegian summers and unprepared for the desert temperatures. They expressed their concerns about how Isaq, their youngest brother, was fitting in at school—“Has he got any friends?”—or about his foot, which was slightly shorter than the other—“Is it any better?”—or inquired if Jibril had been happy with the iPad they had given him, and if he was still going to karate. No, he was not, the family could no longer afford to pay for the lessons. All their money had been spent on trying to rescue them. The trip to Syria had put Sadiq in serious debt. They were unable to use the car, the EU roadworthiness test had been too expensive. The sisters responded by saying that they were sure Allah would sort that out too, along with everything else.

  Ayan logged on erratically but at a regular time, between ten and eleven at night. She made contact one night in mid-May.

  “You at home?”

  “Yes. But I was going to bed.”

  “Nooo, video chat, go online and wake the family!!!”

  “Can’t, have an exam to study for, anyway, good night!” Ismael sent her a thumbs-up symbol.

  Three days later Ayan again requested a video chat.

  “Why are you always logging on so late?” Ismael asked.

  “I don’t get the time to any earlier.”

  “I have my math EXAM tomorrow. So I think I’d better get some sleep.”

  “Soon inshallah I may have some exciting news.”

  “… okay, good night.”

  “You’re such an idiot. Sleep tight!”

  A week later, she got in touch again, between ten and eleven at night as usual.

  “Hi. Hope the exam went okay!”

  “Hi. Felt it went well.”

  “Good. What other exams were you selected to sit for? What ones did you want to do?”

  “It was good to get math. I wanted to sit for IT. But I always get the exams I don’t want.”

  “I hate that too, being picked to sit for exams in my weak subjects.”

  “Oral and written Norwegian should go okay.”

  “Inshallah, that’s chill, let me know what subjects you need to take an oral exam in, maybe I can help you.”

  “Will do.”

  “Listen, is there something up with Dad?”

  Now it was Ismael’s turn not to respond. Yes, there was something up with Sadiq. He had become withdrawn, went about in his own world. He was present but showed little interest in what was around. None of what Ismael said or did seemed to mean much to him. He never asked his son about anything, school, friends, exams, plans for the summer, for next year. Ismael had not only lost two sisters, he had also lost a father. Sadiq spent all his time sitting at the computer looking at Arabic websites for news about Raqqa, about ISIS, about coalition bombing.

  Ismael was merely air. The two who were not there were the ones who mattered.

  * * *

  Sadiq fantasized about different ways of rescuing the girls, but there was one problem: They did not want to be rescued.

  Going to Raqqa, forcing them to come home against their will, no, that would not work.

  The girls would first have to realize they had made a mistake.

  “Can you put some serious thought into getting out of that hellhole soon?” he asked them when they called.

  He bawled them out, until they hung up. Then silence. They had never given a number where they could be reached, the family could not get in touch, all contact was up to them.

  As soon as the younger daughter’s leg heals they will set out for home, he had instructed Lippestad to tell the media. They were being held against their will, Sadiq pointed out.

  He told people he had been on his way to the library in Sandvika when Leila had called him out of the blue to say she had fled from her husband. Sadiq stormed into the library, looked up Raqqa on Google Earth, and found her position from what she told him she could see around her. From the library he had instructed her to wait by a mosque, where she found a bench to sit on, while he had called a Syrian friend and asked him to send someone to get her. Osman had done just that and now Leila was sheltering at the house of a young widow with two small children, Sadiq told people. After a while A
yan had also made it to the hideaway. They were now hiding from their husbands and awaiting rescue, their father assured those he told the story to. But in the spring the house they were holed up in had been bombed …

  If anyone wanted to know more, Sadiq could provide details.

  The little children had been playing outside in the yard when a helicopter, loaded with barrel bombs, began circling. The mother had rushed out, grabbed hold and lifted a child under each arm before running back toward the house. The helicopter was directly above them when it slipped its payload. There was an almighty explosion and the mother and her children were no more.

  Two sisters, who were sitting in their room, were uninjured.

  The gate had been blown open.

  They could not remain there.

  His daughters had rushed out.

  Now he did not know their whereabouts.

  The truth was: They had chosen a life without him.

  They were making pancakes in Raqqa.

  With sugar topping.

  24

  THE END OF SYKES-PICOT

  The days that shook the world came in early June. The time had come to realize the deceased Haji Bakr’s primary objective—expansion eastward.

  On the morning of June 5, 2014, a large convoy of military vehicles rolled over the border from Syria toward the Iraqi city of Samarra, situated on the banks of the Tigris, just over sixty miles from Baghdad. The former capital of the Abbasid caliphate was home to the al-Askari Shrine, one of Shia Islam’s holiest sites, and its street layout and architecture dated from the ninth century; the war was putting world heritage in danger.

  Suicide bombers cleared a path for tanks and infantry. A police station was blown up by a truck loaded with explosives, following which the Islamists fought their way toward the city center. That afternoon black flags were waving from Islamic architectural treasures. But the victory was temporary. Four Iraqi army brigades that had been equipped and placed on a war footing a few weeks before in order to defend Baghdad and the surrounding cities against the Sunni jihadists were readied for action. In the course of the afternoon, Iraqi helicopter attacks forced the Islamists to leave Samarra.