But Are They Salvageable?

"With the fall of Mosul and as the fight in Raqqa [the de-facto Islamic State capital in Syria] intensifies, we are definitely going to see some foreign fighters or women try to surrender."
"So, [the report] is not entirely surprising."
"There are some Canadian women who travelled to Syria and Iraq together, so it might be that they tried to leave together as well [to return to their home country on the defeat of Islamic State in Mosul]."
"There's this assumption that women are travelling just to get married or something, which is sometimes true, but mostly false [driven by ardent religious fundamentalism]."
Amarnath Amarasingam, researcher, radicalized Islam, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S.

"I recently spoke with a mother whose child is there [in Iraq]. The parents are worried. There are some parents who haven’t had any news from their children since the bombing of Mosul began. It’s a time of desperation right now."
"There are some parents who have maintained communication with their children, who give them updates from time to time. But in the last four or five weeks it has been radio silence."
"We have young people and those who have lived through horror. We also have children who have been born over there. The problem is larger than we think."
"I think Canada has to have a greater presence. We have to take this seriously because there are still about 200 Canadians in Syria and Iraq."
Herman Okomba-Deparice, director, Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence, Montreal, Quebec

Some 300 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters remain in the small patch of territory still controlled by the group in Mosul’s Old City, a senior Iraqi commander said on July 5. HurriyetDailyNews

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Some of it [incentive for Canadian women to respond to Islamic State's invitation to young women to join them in Iraq as 'wives' of the Caliphate] is for the glory of caliphate, some of it 'Because I was bored', some of it 'Because these guys were kind of hunky'."
"But ... the one thing we have learned: we never saw females going to Somalia, we never saw females going to Afghanistan, we never saw females going to Bosnia in the '90s. This is a real new phenomenon."
Phil Gurski, former Canadian Security Intelligence Service analyst

© Global Look Press    Iraqi forces have detained a group of female Islamic State fighters in Mosul, five of whom are reportedly German. Berlin is investigating whether one of them is a 16-year-old girl who left the country a year ago to join the terrorist group.

The Iraqi military and police are enjoying a belated revenge. In a country dissolved and rent by sectarian violence, the Iraqi military represent the majority Shiite demographic whom their Sunni minority counterparts once dominated under Saddam Hussein. They are delighted to turn the tables. Even more so to turn around their inglorious scampering away to safety when the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militias first entered Mosul years earlier to loot and dominate the geography as a competing religious-political force whose feared reputation for savagery cowed the Iraqi military.

The women, particularly those hailing from Muslim communities in Europe and North America who responded to the siren call of ISIL through social media accessed on laptops, smartphones and tablets with their sophisticated public relations formula, and boastful claims of being in possession of sweeping areas in Syria and Iraq in which they were preparing to administer a bold, brave and exciting new world of crystal-pure Islam whose doctrine fed in a straight, unadulterated line from Mohammad to ISIL, obviously thrilled women, eager to join this brave new world.

Picture allegedly showing a 16-year-old German Isil member after being captured by Iraqi forces     Credit: Twitter

Captured now, in the ruins of the Old City of Mosul, surrounded by gloating Iraqi Shiites who view Sunnis like the young 16-year-old ISIL 'wife' from Germany, those women have reason enough to be fearful. They cannot communicate, with no Arab-language proficiency with their captors, and can only be grateful that there is U.S. oversight to ensure that they are handed over to American military personnel. Tales will eventually ensue of these women's handling by Shiite militias loyal to Iran who are settling into Mosul for good, to weight the mostly Sunni population in Mosul in favour of Shiite domination.

Canada has been informed that two of the Islamic State 'wives' rounded up in a maze of tunnels among caches of weaponry are Canadian. They are admittedly Canadian citizens, but they are as 'Canadian' as the results of living within Canada in the midst of a close-knit Muslim community where mosque attendance ensures that readings of Koranic scriptures emphasize duty to Islam including strict separation of the faithful from the infidels, and prayers invoking jihad and the primary duty of killing unbelievers. The message from ISIL had no need to be more persuasive than to guarantee that joining them would fulfill those obligations.

These foreign conscripts to Islamic State who left the comfort of their family homes to set out on a journey of their own into a future of idealized Islamic splendour and punishment of the most lethal kind for those spurning the opportunity to join the collective of the faithful, not only travelled to become wives and mothers for ISIL, but were indoctrinated into the arts of warfare, attending combat classes, learning how to use weapons and use them well.

Perhaps the most potent weapon in their arsenal however, would not be lethal devices to kill, but the will to use the same public relations methodology that ensnared them into the ideology of Islamic State, bringing to practical life the Hadiths reminding faithful Muslims of their duties to Islam. Not only are Canadian prisons rife with Islamists sentenced to incarceration for petty criminal activity, and doing their part to convince other prisoners, Muslim and those who are convinced enough to convert, to subscribe to the Islamic State ideal; they are now joined by returning jihadis.

Within society, released back into the social contract of Islamic societies that they know so well, the returned Canadian women and those from elsewhere can go about their self-assigned promulgation of the splendid virtues of Islamic State's caliphate, describing it in the calculated, admirable terms they are familiar with, to exert influence on those ripe to join the group's ideological struggle for a unified Islam and a defeated host country.

Social media images alleging to show an Isil sniper believed to be 16-year-old German Linda W    Credit: Twitter

And should any of the Canadian ISIL "brides", repatriated by an understanding and concerned-for-their-welfare Canadian government, turn out to have been in their formative-adult years when they pledged themselves to Islamic State, the current Liberal-led government of Justin Trudeau will then have the opportunity to demonstrate to the rest of the non-Muslim world just how forward-looking and "feminist" Canada is, by enriching the returnees through a cash settlement of millions, while rehabilitating their reputations by apologizing to them on behalf of furious and non-assenting Canadians.

Pity the children they've borne to Islamic State, to populate the caliphate, obeying yet another Koranic injunction. Those that survived the massive assaults on Mosul in bombed buildings, collapsing on the children whose plaintive cries of pain alerted to their presence. And the babies found abandoned while their parents pursued their obligations to martyrdom. 

A little girl named Amina was found by Iraqi Army soldiers when they heard her cries from the rubble.  Credit: Rex