Najha, who works with the local NGO Oxygen, talks with two former wives of Saudi Islamic State fighters on a street in downtown Raqqa, on April 20, 2024. (Photo by Céline Martelet.)
In a nearly empty apartment in the city center, two women, Souad and Najha, sat on a thin mattress, chatting. Souad’s sons, Mohammad and Omar, seven and nine, frequently interrupted the conversation — seeking their mother’s attention. In 2014, their father, an Australian jihadist, married Souad in Raqqa. Despite their circumstances, Souad does not regret the marriage. “When he arrived in Raqqa, he asked my parents for my hand in marriage. My family wasn’t IS, but I agreed. My husband is kind and sociable. He spoke to everyone in our neighborhood,” she said.Expressionless, her gaze fixed, she reiterated a familiar narrative among jihadists’ wives, claiming he never carried a weapon and was a doctor. Today, he is held by the Kurdish-majority Syrian Democratic Forces in a prison in northeastern Syria.After the territorial fall of IS in 2019...
In a nearly empty apartment in the city center, two women, Souad and Najha, sat on a thin mattress, chatting. Souad’s sons, Mohammad and Omar, seven and nine, frequently interrupted the conversation — seeking their mother’s attention. In 2014, their father, an Australian jihadist, married Souad in Raqqa. Despite their circumstances, Souad does not regret the marriage. “When he arrived in Raqqa, he asked my parents for my hand in marriage. My family wasn’t IS, but I agreed. My husband is kind and sociable. He spoke to everyone in our neighborhood,” she said.Expressionless, her gaze fixed, she reiterated a familiar narrative among jihadists’ wives, claiming he never carried a weapon and was a doctor. Today, he is held by the Kurdish-majority Syrian Democratic Forces in a prison in northeastern Syria.After the territorial fall...
