This story is a co-production between CBC and BBC and is a part of Bloodlines, a podcast sequence co-produced by CBC Podcasts and BBC Sounds. The primary episode can be accessible Oct. 23. Subscribe to the sequence here.
A Canadian girl whose marriage to a infamous ISIS fighter is being made public for the primary time says she was “oblivious to what was occurring” when she lived with him in Syria.
In an interview with CBC and U.Okay. public broadcaster BBC in Toronto final week, Dure Ahmed, 33, stated she was unaware of the atrocities being dedicated by her then-husband El Shafee Elsheikh, who was a part of a cell inside ISIS linked to the kidnapping, torture and beheading of Western hostages.
“It is like I used to be oblivious to what was occurring,” she stated.
She stated she accepts that her time with Elsheikh was a part of her life, “whether or not I prefer it or not.”
Particulars launched at peace bond listening to
Ahmed, who was born in Canada to Ethiopian dad and mom, travelled from Canada to affix the British-born Elsheikh in Syria in 2014. She says she wasn’t radicalized however was simply “a dumb lady in love.”
After the defeat of ISIS, often known as the Islamic State, in Syria in 2019, she ended up in a Kurdish-controlled camp in northern Syria for the wives and youngsters of suspected ISIS militants. In April of this yr, Ahmed and her two sons have been amongst a bunch of girls and youngsters repatriated to Canada.
When she returned to Canada, Ahmed was instantly arrested on a “terrorism peace bond” and later granted bail with situations.
On Monday, the small print of her case — together with whom she was married to — have been made public for the primary time in a Brampton, Ont., courtroom.
The Crown lawyer argued Ahmed had been “steeped” in ISIS ideology and it could have been “seemingly” she knew of her husband’s function with the group earlier than leaving Canada. Dure’s lawyer didn’t contest the situations steered for her terrorism peace bond.
The Crown and Ahmed’s authorized crew put ahead a joint proposal with situations that would come with her being monitored by GPS and subjected to a curfew between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. ET. The decide stated he would ship his ruling on Oct. 19.
‘I am not in search of sympathy’
Ahmed stated she expects a backlash for talking publicly however needs to focus on the plight of the ladies and youngsters of suspected ISIS fighters nonetheless caught in Syrian camps.
“I am not in search of sympathy or pity,” she stated.
Elsheikh and the others in his ISIS cell have been nicknamed “the Beatles” by their captives due to their British accents. The boys have been liable for the deaths of a number of hostages — most of whom have been beheaded — and filmed the killings and posted the movies on social media in 2014 and 2015.
U.S. prosecutors stated Elsheikh’s actions resulted within the deaths of 4 People: journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and assist staff Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig. They stated he additionally conspired within the deaths of two British assist staff, David Haines and Alan Henning, in addition to Japanese journalists Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto.
Their our bodies have by no means been discovered.
Elsheikh, who’s from west London, is now serving eight life sentences in a U.S. jail. The U.Okay. stripped him of his citizenship earlier than his conviction.
Did not know husband had joined ISIS
Ahmed claims Elsheikh had not advised her he had joined ISIS earlier than she left Canada to be with him. She insists she was unaware of ISIS’s ideology when she arrived in Syria.
When she bought to Syria, she says, she barely acknowledged the controlling and violent determine Elsheikh had change into.
Ahmed joined her husband in Syria simply after ISIS had shocked the world by committing quite a few atrocities whereas seizing the northern Iraqi metropolis of Mosul and after beginning a genocide in opposition to Iraq’s Yazidi non secular minority.
CBC and BBC interviewed Dure Ahmed twice, most just lately in Toronto final week, the place she spoke extra freely. The primary assembly, nevertheless, was within the detention camp in Syria in November 2022, the place she had supplied to talk about a lacking British youngster whose story is included in an upcoming podcast sequence co-produced by CBC and the BBC.
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At first, the journalists had no thought of her husband’s id, solely studying about it later of their investigation.
Ahmed stated she and Elsheikh met in Toronto in 2007, when she was 17 and he was 19. The journalists requested how they’d first linked as youngsters in Canada.
“Smoking weed,” Ahmed stated with fun. “He did not care about God. It was nothing to do with IS.”
The pair stored in contact when Elsheikh, the son of Sudanese refugees, returned to London. In 2010, they have been married in an Islamic ceremony, however the relationship remained largely lengthy distance, as Ahmed stayed in Toronto the place she was finding out for an English diploma.
In keeping with Ahmed in addition to testimony supplied within the U.S. trial, Elsheikh turned drawn to extremism and met the boys who would change into his fellow militants in ISIS in west London.
“He wasn’t a social individual,” Ahmed stated. “He is such an introvert. So he had all of the qualities that may lead any individual into that darkish path of radicalization.”
‘Not figuring out was higher than figuring out’
In 2012, Elsheikh travelled to Syria to battle within the nation’s civil struggle. He joined ISIS a yr later and spent the subsequent two years encouraging his spouse to affix him.
“‘Come test it out. You may return.’ As if it was so easy,” she stated.
Elsheikh had refused to present her particulars of what he was doing in Syria. She stated she did not even know which metropolis he was residing in.
“For probably the most half, I believed that not figuring out was higher than figuring out,” stated Ahmed.
After seizing territory in Iraq and Syria all through 2013 and 2014, ISIS established a caliphate in Iraq and Syria in June 2014.
As Ahmed contemplated making the journey over, she says members of CSIS, Canada’s intelligence company, questioned her about her husband. Ahmed says she had nothing to inform CSIS and that she advised Elsheikh that brokers had contacted her.
CSIS advised the BBC it was not capable of touch upon the specifics of any case.
Ahmed was 24 and a jobless graduate when she lastly agreed to affix her husband in 2014. She says she had not seen the horrors of the ISIS beheadings, which have been being reported broadly.
“It is perhaps actually exhausting to suppose, but it surely’s truthfully the reality,” she stated.
In keeping with her, Elsheikh organized all the things. All she needed to do was “hop on a airplane” to Turkey.
“I simply carried a carry-on — three pairs of pants and two T-shirts,” she stated.
Contradictory accounts of life in Raqqa
The couple lived in Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria, the place abstract killings at a metropolis centre roundabout turned commonplace, with severed heads placed on show afterward. Ahmed denies having supported ISIS whereas there.
Throughout the interview within the Syrian detention camp, Ahmed stated every day life had concerned doing regular issues with feminine buddies, together with going to eating places or taking youngsters on ferris wheels.
However within the interview in Toronto, Ahmed stated her home in Raqqa had felt like a jail. They not often went out. There was no telephone or web service — simply her, her husband and youngsters and Elsheikh’s different spouse. Polygamy was frequent amongst ISIS fighters.
Her husband was “so non-public,” she stated. “We could not even pull up the blinds.”
Throughout her time in Syria, she gave delivery to 2 sons. She stated she feels her youngsters are fortunate to be alive given the violence Elsheikh inflicted on her whereas she was pregnant. CBC has been unable to confirm Ahmed’s claims about her ex-husband’s abuse.
She stated she tried to run away many instances. She ultimately left after Elsheikh divorced her, in search of refuge along with her boys in a visitor home for girls.
CBC and BBC identified that she answered questions in another way through the two interviews and requested if it was simply handy for her to say this stuff now as a result of she is again in Canada and liable to going to jail.
“If I will be charged, I will get charged regardless,” she stated. “So, it would not actually make a distinction.”
Elsheikh ought to admit crimes to his children, says ex-wife
Just like the U.S., Spain, Sweden, Germany and France, Canada has repatriated a few of the households of ISIS fighters.
The U.Okay., in the meantime, has stripped citizenship from individuals who travelled to dwell underneath ISIS. These people embody Shamima Begum, who went to Syria in 2015. She ultimately married an ISIS fighter and now lives in the identical camp in Syria that Ahmed was in.
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Ahmed insists she is not merely in search of to easy her public picture however is talking publicly as a result of she is grateful she and her youngsters have been given a second likelihood.
Though he was convicted, Elsheikh pleaded not responsible to his costs in courtroom. Ahmed says that for the sake of his youngsters and the households of his victims, Elsheikh ought to admit what he did.
“That is one thing he has to speak to my children about. It will probably’t simply cease at his sentence,” Ahmed stated.
She says when courtroom restrictions enable, she’s going to communicate to her ex-husband in jail. She has supplied to ask him questions on behalf of the households of his victims, together with concerning the areas of their family members’ our bodies.
Ahmed says her household is receiving counselling and help from a Canadian government-funded group that assists individuals from battle zones and offers with all types of extremism.
She says her youngsters are adjusting effectively in class, however she feels guilt about having given delivery to them within the ISIS caliphate whereas married to Elsheikh.
“You recognize, their life was at all times at risk. That is why I am so grateful,” she stated. “Being again now and having the ability to type of assist with that injury, it is reversing it.”