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

by Åsne Seierstad

  She left for Turkey. Then she crossed the border.

  Identity. Meaning. Rebellion. Being a part of something greater than oneself. Jihad rendered all personal problems small. For a time.

  One day in autumn, Dilal received a message via WhatsApp.

  “Hi Dilal, how’s it going?”

  “Aisha! Long time no see!”

  “I’m on God’s path.”

  “Where are you?”

  “You know where. I had to do it this way. Matter of urgency. Everything happened so fast.”

  “Aisha … where is Salahuddin?”

  “He’s with me. He’s here. He’s safe. He likes it here. I’ll send pictures. Dilal, I’ve married Bastian. Both Emira and I are married to him.”

  “Aisha, you brought Salahuddin? To a war zone? You deceived me!”

  “I had to!”

  “And you’ve married not out of love for a second time. What are you thinking?”

  “Can you send me the money in the aid account?” Aisha merely responded.

  “Aisha, that’s to go to relief work.”

  “I’m going to use it to help people down here!”

  “You said it yourself, remember, when Bastian and Emira used fund-raising money on themselves! Ubaydullah said it as well, that they couldn’t be trusted? And now the three of you are together!”

  “Dilal, just send me the money, and you’re more than welcome to visit! I can find a husband for you!”

  There was 30,000 kroner in the account. Dilal refused to send it.

  “Can I have it as a loan then?” Aisha asked.

  When she gave birth to her son, she had changed her name on Facebook to Umm Salahuddin. In Raqqa she changed her profile picture. The new one showed her son, who had just taken his first steps, in camouflage clothing with a Kalashnikov in his lap.

  He was going to be one of the Cubs of the Caliphate, Aisha boasted.

  Their arrival in Syria had coincided with a surge of foreign fighters coming into the country. According to American intelligence, approximately a thousand foreign fighters were arriving in the region every month. Quite a few of them brought children.

  Boys who distinguished themselves from an early age were recruited into Ashbal al-khilafa—the Cubs of the Caliphate. They were taken from their parents when they were ten to live in camps and toughen up. They received systematic training and were subjected to harsh physical and psychological ordeals. Propaganda videos show the boys standing at attention while being struck with sticks. Others stand in the background, waiting their turn, while observing their friends’ faces. They were trained in close combat and in the use of pistols, rifles, and knives. The ultimate test was to execute a prisoner.

  The children were more than mere tools; they were to be building blocks. The goal of the Islamic State was not only to defeat the enemy and conquer the country but also to ensure its survival as a group.

  Just before her son’s second birthday, Aisha sent a picture of Salahuddin. The photograph gave Dilal the chills. His eyelid was swollen and purple, the blood vessels in his eyes were burst, and he had bruises on his cheeks.

  Dilal tried to call. Aisha did not answer.

  PART IV

  PEER GYNT: Where was I, as myself, as the whole man, the real?

  Where was I, with my forehead stamped with God’s seal?

  SOLVEIG: In my faith, in my hope, in my charity.

  —Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt, 1867

  26

  NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTERS

  Sadiq googled Manbij. Ayan and Hisham had moved again. The men went where IS ordered them, the women followed.

  It was October 2014. The girls had been in Syria for one year. Maybe it would be easier to get them out of Manbij, which was in the Aleppo province, it occurred to Sadiq. His hopes soon turned to despair. The city was part of the caliphate, control was just as tight as in Raqqa. The Islamists had taken over the police forces, the ministries, the courts. The road between Manbij and Raqqa was a lifeline for IS, since Kurdish forces had destroyed, or taken control of, the bridges over the Euphrates from the Turkish border all the way south to Lake Assad. Although the majority of the population of Manbij was Arab, the Kurds viewed it as their land, having roots stretching back to the Middle Ages.

  The Islamic State came as colonists, but not everybody was unhappy with the new rulers. This was not because of the popularity of their ideology but because the new state did not feel like the worst of evils. Justice was harsh, but it was predictable. The Islamists, for the most part, left ordinary people in peace, as long as they obeyed, dressed correctly, and prayed. Ordinary Syrians continued to persevere.

  The IS-run administration was at times more efficient than people were used to. It was quicker to repair broken water pipes or fallen electricity cables, it cleaned up the parks, planted flowers, and swept the streets. Photographs of the tidying up were posted on Twitter. The caliphate was to gleam.

  The eastern part of Aleppo province was a backwater. Most of its inhabitants made their living from agriculture and the only sign of industry was a single cement factory. Lawlessness had accompanied the civil war. Criminal gangs mixed with the rebel forces, plundering, kidnapping, raping, and killing. Crime fell when IS took control—the severity of punishments scared people: public flogging, the loss of your hand or your head, crucifixion.

  Sadiq read online that the ruins of aqueducts and walls from ancient Hierapolis were to be found in Manbij. In another article he learned that there were as many refugees in the town at present as inhabitants. What if the girls could hide among the refugees, make an escape that way?

  This is how he spent his days and nights, in front of the screen, reading and reflecting on everything that was happening where the girls were.

  In mid-November, more Syrians and another American were ritually murdered. The IS video of the event, which they titled Although the Disbelievers Dislike It, showed the beheading of twenty-two Syrian soldiers and the decapitated head of Peter Kassig. The young aid worker was the fourth Western hostage that IS had killed. He had managed, some months previously, to get a letter to his parents in Indiana smuggled out: “Don’t worry Dad, if I do go down, I won’t go thinking anything but what I know to be true. That you and mom love me more than the moon & the stars.”

  The jihadi girls in the caliphate functioned as a fan club for the executioners. One of them described Kassig’s beheading as “gut-wrenchingly awesome, shariah = justice.”

  * * *

  Young men from both sides were falling at the front. Two days after Kassig was beheaded, two Norwegian IS terrorists were reported killed on Norwegian TV2.

  The report began with a photograph of a smiling boy in a winter jacket, his skin dark against the snow.

  “This is Hisham Hussain Ahmed,” the reporter said. The next picture showed the same boy holding a pike. “He came to Norway as an unaccompanied minor in 2003 at age thirteen. In December 2012 he traveled to Syria,” the reporter went on. “The Norwegian of Eritrean descent was said to have a leadership role in the Islamic State, IS.”

  Hisham?

  Sadiq felt relief coursing through him.

  Hisham was dead!

  Ayan was free!

  A warm sensation of revenge surged through him. Hisham had humiliated him deeply, first by stealing Ayan away from her family and then by marrying her without asking permission. Finally Sadiq could put thoughts of him from his mind.

  He rang Osman to break the good news.

  “Great!” Osman said. “She’s sure to want to go home now.”

  Hisham was out of the way. Ayan was a widow. All they had to do was await her call.

  Osman had earned a tidy sum bringing foreign fighters in, now he could make money getting them out.

  Ayan would probably reach out soon. Once the period of mourning had ended.

  “I have the solution,” Osman announced one day when he called to see if Ayan had been in touch. “There’s a relative of mine. He has two faces, if
you know what I mean. He’s working for IS but is actually one of us.” The smuggler outlined the plan. “Part of the road to Aleppo goes through a tunnel. At one end IS is in control, at the other al-Nusra. When he comes from Atmeh, he drives into the tunnel as a Nusra man and out the other end as an IS man. On his next trip to the caliphate he can stop off in Raqqa and Manbij on the way back, pick up the girls, hide them aboard, and drive through the tunnel and out. Very simple … also very dangerous.”

  Osman would ring when “the Double,” as they called him, was ready to carry out the job. In the meantime Sadiq was to wait.

  “You’ll soon get them back! But it’s going to cost money.”

  Later on that month Osman made contact again. “The Double is ready. You just need to put him in touch with the girls.”

  Sadiq called him. The Double answered in classical Arabic, struggling slightly with suffixes and some words. Nevertheless, his message was clear: It was a risky operation, both for him and the daughters, but it was possible.

  “You have to get them to call me,” the Double told him. “I have to be in direct contact with them.”

  The deal had to be crystal clear. The girls needed to know exactly when and where to wait for their rescuer, and it all had to happen fast.

  “Then I can drive them anywhere, to Turkey, wherever you want.”

  “Yes, I’ll have them call you,” Sadiq said.

  * * *

  Sadiq had been in contact with a Norwegian film crew about his attempts to rescue the girls. They had been following him since the summer. Their documentary had the working title Only a Father. That was how Sadiq had described himself in Syria when explaining who he was, and to IS when they accused him of being a spy.

  The film crew had met Osman, Mehmut the driver, and Firas, the doctor who had bandaged up Leila and had since sought asylum in Sweden. They had also tracked down one of Sadiq’s fellow inmates from the sewage plant, a Syrian from the last cell Sadiq had been held in. All they were missing now was the girls.

  Veslemøy Hvidsteen, a reporter working for NRK, the Norwegian state broadcaster, was the one who had gotten in touch with Sadiq after seeing him on the news. His back was to the camera, but Veslemøy had recognized him. In 2006 he had appeared on an episode of Migrapolis—a series about the everyday lives of immigrants in Norway—she had made. Sadiq had been interviewed along with the psychologist who had helped him tackle his trauma and problems with aggression after the Somali civil war. The girls had also featured in the 2006 recordings, playing football with their father: Ayan, a lanky teenager dressed like a tomboy; Leila, still a child.

  Veslemøy’s husband, Styrk Jansen, was to direct the documentary. Sadiq had told him about the Double and that they were to meet him in a village near the border. First they’d have to hand over the agreed sum of money, then the girls would be transported out. He had told the documentary makers that the girls were in hiding, had run away from their husbands, were desperate, and had begged him to save them. When he had met Ayan in al-Dana the year before, he confided, she had grabbed hold of him like a cat bearing its claws out and whispered, “Save us, Dad, if you can!”

  In early November, the producer ordered plane tickets to Reyhanlı, a town in the south of Turkey, close to the village where they were to meet the Double. Styrk packed his camera, lenses, battery packs, and cash in dollars. Sadiq was allowing him to film the meeting with the Double, follow him to the frontier, if possible, and wait there until the girls came across. The embrace—the reunion between father and daughters—was to be captured on film.

  The day before they were due to depart, Styrk received a call from Sadiq. He was breathing heavily and his voice was barely audible.

  “I have terrible news…”

  “What’s happened?” the producer asked.

  “I’ve received a picture … I’ve been sent a picture…”

  Sadiq paused before saying in a grave tone, “The Double has been killed.”

  Styrk Jansen had to sit down.

  “That’s all I know,” Sadiq sobbed. It was Osman who had sent him the photograph, he said. “He’s been beheaded and crucified!”

  Sadiq forwarded the image to Styrk. It showed a man tied to a fence, his body leaning into the barbed wire and his arms outstretched. His decapitated head, with a short dark beard and a round, heavyset face, was placed between his legs. There was a placard on his body with the words I AM A TRAITOR.

  “Two nights ago he was on his way out of his apartment in Reyhanlı,” Sadiq explained. “Outside the building, he was surrounded by several men in niqabs and bundled into a car. They drove him across the border into Syria. IS had uncovered his double-dealing. The local head of Nusra had been holding secret negotiations with IS in order to join forces. The meetings concluded with the Nusra commander swearing allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Islamists pooled weapons and men. The lists of personnel had given the game away. The same man appeared on both. It mattered little that they were now one group—if you’ve betrayed once, you can easily do it again. A spy is a spy. The sentence is death,” Sadiq related.

  Styrk shivered.

  “Are we the reason he was caught? Could it be because he was going to rescue the girls? Are we to blame for a man’s death?”

  “I don’t know,” Sadiq replied. “We’ll have to wait until I get the full version from Osman. He’s in mourning now. They were close relatives.”

  Styrk canceled the airline tickets. Put the cameras back on the shelf.

  * * *

  Autumn brought darkness.

  And it would get darker still. Osman texted Sadiq.

  “Abu Siddiq is not dead.”

  “Who?!”

  The Syrian smuggler had made inquiries.

  “Hisham! Your son-in-law. He used to call himself Abu Siddiq. Now he’s changed his name again.”

  “I’m sure he’s dead,” Sadiq replied.

  “He’s alive. A guy that knows him has seen him twice. The second time was only two days ago.”

  “Oh, no…”

  “He was in the hospital. Wounded. Listen. Wait until you hear. The clinic where he was treated is underground. Several yards down. In a parking facility in Raqqa. And do you know who else was there? The leader! He was wounded in the same assault, or so they say. That’s all I know.”

  “How do you know he’s alive?”

  “The guy I know confirmed it.”

  “So that bloody bastard was alive two days ago…”

  “He had a Toyota 4×4 he wanted to sell, the same one he had in Atmeh! I saw pictures of it. His Arabic was really bad, by the way. He speaks the language like an idiot.”

  Rumors flew this way and that. Rumors could take a life or they could bring people back from the dead. Osman knew people on all sides. When he got wind of a story, hearing various versions, he analyzed the pieces, added his own; his ability to patch the information together was his main currency as a smuggler.

  * * *

  Sadiq’s daughters were unaware of their father’s rescue attempts. In early December, after being out of contact with Ismael for several months, Ayan took up the thread of the conversation they had left off.

  “Hey you! Have you bothered looking for answers or are you mucking about?”

  “How are things?” Ismael answered.

  “Alhamdulillah just fine.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “At an internet café.”

  “What’s happening?”

  And there the conversation ceased. How he hated this! These messages from out of the blue that ended just as abruptly as they started. When he tried to make contact again, he was met with a wall of silence. Then a new message would pop up all of a sudden with a “hi” and a smiley, and open up the wound afresh, then nothing more until his sisters saw fit.

  Ismael had gotten a part-time job at a local supermarket, and he took all the extra shifts that came his way. When he was not working, he found himself with a lot of downtime, which h
e spent with friends, hanging out, going to the gym, and playing computer games.

  He examined the prospectuses of a number of colleges and universities. The most prestigious courses, the ones requiring the highest grades, could be ruled out; he had not left school with particularly good grades. The previous year he’d looked at a petroleum-engineering program in the north, but then he discovered that unemployment within that sector was on the rise.

  If he were to follow his heart, he’d learn about the universe, about atoms and physics and chemistry. He wanted to find out how the world worked.

  At the same time, he wanted to forget it.

  He had found it hard to focus in his final year at school, had been unable to apply himself. That was the reason his results had been so poor. He knew he had to pull himself together, but the application date for the next academic year was still a long way off. Next year he would do something with his life. Drag himself up from the trough, from the glum mornings, the bleak nights. Put his sisters behind him.

  Advent, the darkest time of year, arrived, and still no snow fell to brighten up the Norwegian winter. One night in December he wrote to Ayan.

  “I would sooner go to hell than worship God even if he exists. God is such a tyrant. He/She demands respect and subordination. Fuck that.”

  He continued his nocturnal monologue.

  “By the way, Ayan, I thought you were one of the smartest people I knew, I looked up to you, where did you lose all logic, do you really believe little ISIS/Daesh are going to take over the world? With their AK-47s and the equipment the Americans ‘left behind,’ ISIS and other small groups like them are only doing America’s dirty work. ISIS is killing other religious groupings. Say ISIS takes over the Assad regime, do you know what will happen then? It would give the USA the excuse to send in forces and kill the rest. BUT HANG ON that’s not the objective. There’s oil there after all = less fatalities for the Americans—making Obama look good—America gets to pump oil ensuring their weapons industry continues to turn a profit. In the meantime IS soldiers sit around complaining that the USA won’t send in ground troops just drones. ‘so unfair with drones, fight like a man’—Tards.”