A
24-year-old Muslim convert has admitted taking her infant son to live
among Islamic State terrorists in the Syrian city of Raqqa because she
believes he will lead a 'better life' under their brutal regime.
Asiya
Ummi Abdullah denied that children are unhappy living under the
oppressive rule of ISIS' religious fanatics and explained that she felt
her three-year-old son's spiritual well-being was better served in the
group's de facto capital, where public crucifixions and beheadings are
commonplace.
Ummi
Abduallah - who had lived in Turkey since her teens but was born in
Kyrgyzstan - said moving to the militant stronghold in Syria was in part
to shield the young boy from the sex, crime, drugs and alcohol she sees
as rampant in her home town Istanbul.
'Who says children here are unhappy?... He will know God and live under his rules,' she said.
Missing: Sahin Aktan, 44, shows photos
of his ex-wife Asiya Ummi Abdullah during an interview at his lawyer's
office in Istanbul, Turkey. The 24-year-old Muslim convert took their
child to territory controlled by ISIS
Radicals: ISIS supporters slogans as
they carry the group's flags in front of the provincial government
headquarters in Mosul, Iraq. A growing number of people are moving to
the region to live under Shariah law
Ummi Abdullah's journey to radical Islam was born of loneliness and resentment.
Born
Svetlana Hasanova, she converted to Islam after marrying Aktan six
years ago. The pair met in Turkey when Hasanova, still a teenager, came
to Istanbul from with her mother to buy textiles.
Ummi
Abdullah had travelled from former Soviet republic Kyrgyzstan, where 80
per cent of the population are Muslim and Russian Orthodoxy is the
minority religion.
Her
story, told to The Associated Press in a series of Facebook messages,
illustrates how the vast swaths of territory under the control of ISIS
in Syria and Iraq have become home to thousands of devout Muslim
families, despite the extreme violence so often found there.
Many
of these highly religious families are Turkish and have made their way
to ISIS' de facto capital Raqqa with young children in tow in order to
live among murderers and terrorists.
'The
children of that country see all this and become either murderers or
delinquents or homosexuals or thieves,' Ummi Abduallah wrote, attempting
to justify moving her young son into ISIS' brutal realm.
ISIS, the self-styled caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria, appears eager to attract families.
One
recent promotional video shows a montage of Muslim fighters from around
the world cuddling their children in Raqqa against the backdrop of an
amusement park where children run and play.
Mr Aktan holds up
a picture of the son he's not seen since July, when his ex-wife took
him over the border to ISIS-controlled Raqqa where she now lives
A
man, identified in the footage as an American named Abu Abdurahman
al-Trinidadi, holds an infant who has a toy machine gun strapped to his
back.
'Look at all the little children,' al-Trinidadi says. 'They're having fun.'
It
may promote itself as a family-friendly place, but ISIS' bloody
campaign for control of Syria and Iraq has uprooted hundreds of
thousands of people in a wave of destruction involving brutal
punishments and acts of cultural vandalism.
None of that matters to Ummi Abdullah.
'The blood and goods of infidels are halal,' she said - meaning she believes that Islam sanctions the killing of non-Muslims.
Ummi
Abdullah's story has already made waves in Turkey, where her
disappearance became front-page news after her ex-husband - a
44-year-old car salesman named Sahin Aktan - went to the press in an
effort to find their child.
Many others in Turkey have carted away family to ISIS territory under far less public scrutiny and in much greater numbers.
In
one incident earlier this month, more than 50 families from various
parts of Turkey slipped across the border to live under ISIS, according
to opposition legislator Atilla Kart.
Kart's
figure appears high, but his account is backed by a villager from
Cumra, in central Turkey, who told AP that his son and his
daughter-in-law are among the massive group.
The villager spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he is terrified of reprisals.
The
movement of foreign fighters to the Islamic State group - largely
consisting of alienated, angry or simply war-hungry young Muslims - has
been covered extensively.
The arrival of entire families, many but not all of them Turkish, has received less attention.
'It's
about fundamentalism,' said Han, a professor of international relations
at Istanbul's Kadir Has University. The Islamic State group's
uncompromising interpretation of Islam promises parents the opportunity
to raise their children free from any secular influence.
'It's a confined and trustable environment for living out your religion,' Han said. 'It kind of becomes a false heaven.'
'Before we were married': Aktan shows a
picture of him and his wife in happier times, before the birth of their
son and before her increasing interest in radical Islam
Aktan, speaking from his lawyer's office in Istanbul, said the relationship worked at first.
'Before
we were married we were swimming in the sea, in the pool, and in the
evening we would sit down and eat fish and drink wine. That's how it
was,' he said, holding a photograph of the two of them, both looking
radiant in a well-manicured garden. 'But after the kid was born, little
by little she started interpreting Islam in her own way.'
Aktan
said his wife became increasingly devout, covering her hair and praying
frequently, often needling him to join in. He refused.
'Thank God, I'm a Muslim,' he said. 'But I'm not the kind of person who can pray five times a day.'
Asked why she became engrossed in religion, Aktan acknowledged that his wife was lonely.
But
in Facebook messages to the AP, many typed out on a smartphone, Ummi
Abdullah accused her husband of treating her 'like a slave.'
She
alleged that Aktan pressured her to abort their child and said she felt
isolated in Istanbul. 'I had no friends,' she said. 'I was constantly
belittled by him and his family. I was nobody in their eyes.'
These photos are all Aktan has left of his son and ex-wife after she took the boy away to ISIS-controled territory
Aktan
acknowledged initially asking his wife to terminate her pregnancy,
saying it was too early in the marriage to have children. But when she
insisted on carrying the pregnancy to term, Aktan said he accepted her
decision and loved the boy.
Meanwhile
Aktan's wife was finding the companionship she yearned for online,
chatting with jihadists and filling her Facebook page with religious
exhortations and attacks on gays.
In
June, she and Aktan divorced. The next month, a day before her
ex-husband was due to pick up their son for vacation, she left with the
boy for Gaziantep, a Turkish town near the Syrian border.
Aktan,
who had been eavesdropping on her social media activity, alerted the
authorities, but the pair still managed to slip across the border
It
isn't clear how many families have followed Ummi Abdullah's path,
although anecdotal evidence suggests a powerful flow from Turkey into
Syria.
In
Dilovasi, a industrial town of 42,000 halfway between Istanbul and the
port city of Izmit, at least four people - including a pair of brothers
- recently left for Syria, three local officials said.
The
officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
allowed to talk to the media, said that dozens of people from
surrounding towns were believed to have left as well.
Aktan says he is in touch with other families in similar circumstances.
He
cited one case in the Turkish capital, Ankara, where 15 members of the
same extended family had left for Syria 'as if they're going on
vacation.'
Even with U.S. bombs now falling on Raqqa, Ummi Abdullah says she has no second thoughts. 'I only fear God,' she wrote.
For Aktan, who says he hasn't seen his son since his ex-wife took the boy, her decision is a selfish form of fanaticism.
'If
you want to die, you can do so,' he said. 'But you don't have the right
to bring the kid with you... No one can give you this right.'
Ummi Abdullah's Facebook account has now disappeared.
Her
messages to the AP were also removed, replaced with a message from
Facebook saying they were 'identified as abusive or marked as spam.'
Facebook did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
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