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একটি ভেঙে পড়া পরিবারে মা-বার প্রতি আস্থাহীনতা ও তা থেকে সৃষ্ট তাদের কর্তৃত্বে অনাস্থা নিয়ে বেড়ে উঠা এই নারী ইসলামি চরমপন্থায় ঝুকেঁ কীভাবে জঙ্গি গোষ্ঠী আইএসের সঙ্গে জড়িয়ে পড়ে এক জিহাদিকে বিয়ে করে সিরিয়ায় চলে যান এবং সেখান থেকে মুক্ত হয়ে এখন সুস্থ জীবনযাপন করছেন তা ব্রিটিশ গণমাধ্যম দ্য গার্ডিয়ানের কাছে তুলে ধরেছেন। সেই অভিজ্ঞতা তার জবানিতেই ভাষান্তর করে পাঠকদের জন্য তুলে ধরা হল।]
I was 18 when we moved to East London. He had a lot of new friends, but they were conservative, religious. They despised me for being too western. So I was so frustrated that I wanted to change. My cousin, who influenced me a lot, fell into extremism in college. He used to teach me about the caliphate. I myself read a lot of Saudi Islamic fatwas online and thought: I am searching for the truth.
I did not participate in an anti-Iraq demonstration in London in March 2003. A guy gave me a job with the name of a Muslim dating website written on it. It was there that I met John Georges, a newly converted Muslim American. Growing up in a middle-class family, this multilingual young man seemed quite intelligent. I remember.
I married him on John’s first visit to London. Because he knew there was no other way to leave home without him. A few days later we moved to the United States and had a son. Then I stopped wearing the niqab and became independent, on the other hand, John was getting just as radical. John was sentenced in 2006 to three years in prison for hacking into the website of a pro-Israel lobby. I was still financially dependent on him; I did not realize that I was trapped in a nuptial marriage.
After receiving John, we went to Egypt with three children; Then I moved to Istanbul. Although he promised to go to Syria, I was adamant not to bring the children to the conflict zone. Although we couldn’t afford to stay in Istanbul then. John told me and his family in the United States that we would move to Antioch, Turkey. But we actually went directly to the Syrian border.
When we took a bus at midnight, I still had no idea what was going on.
I was five months pregnant and I was relieved to be able to sleep with my baby. When the morning light woke us up, we were at a checkpoint in Syria; John warned me not to bother.
As soon as I got a call, I called his mother and told her that John had lied to us. I cried; I asked him to get in touch with the FBI agents who had been following us for years. Later, the FBI told me that if I returned to the United States, they would not accuse me of joining a jihadist organization.
We had no water supply in Syria. Because the top tank of the house was covered in bullets. I suffered from malnutrition and so did the children; I was afraid of losing them. John misbehaved me for contacting the FBI agents, and I was very angry at him for cheating. At this point, as I was unwilling to cover my face, John was ashamed of me. His jihadist friends pressured him to leave or control me.
Finally, John fell in love and arranged for us to leave. Although we had to wait three weeks due to obstacles and internal conflicts. John paid a human smuggler to transport us. We had to walk a few kilometers to cross a barbed wire cave before jumping into the truck with sniper bullets.
The smuggler was supposed to take us to the bus station, but the man left us in a completely unknown location. We fell into extreme misery, then a friendly Turk showed us the way. I am very grateful for survival. I wanted my children to be well, to have a full life and to have some direction in the world.
John played a key role in establishing the caliphate, and I played a role in brainwashing the West, the main propagandist for the Islamic State. She never met me and later found out that I had remarried in Syria.
I learned last year that he was killed, probably during the 2016 American bombing.
Now I live near his parents’ home in Texas. I know it is good for them and for the children to be around. My current husband is respectful and loving to me; I love freedom like me.
I have worked with Faith Matters, an extremist group in the UK. The key to ridding yourself of extremism is education: you need to highlight data, information and science. This is what changed me: I read a lot, I got educated. If we want to live in peace, we must have a sense of equality.
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