The Daily - The American Women Who Joined ISIS

Episode Date: February 22, 2019

They left to join the so-called caliphate and took an oath of allegiance to a terrorist group intent on destroying the West. Now they want to come home. What should the United States do with the American wives of Islamic State fighters? Guest: Rukmini Callimachi, who covers terrorism and the Islamic State for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. They left home to join the caliphate and took an oath of allegiance to a terrorist group intent on destroying the United States. Now they want to come home. What should the U.S. do with the American lives of ISIS fighters?

It's Friday, February 22nd. Rukmini Kalamaki, tell me about getting to this detention center. Tell me about getting to this detention center. So I've been in Syria at this point for almost three weeks. And we woke up early and we drove about two and a half hours to the northeast of the country. And there there's a sprawling refugee camp where thousands of people are being held in a pseudo detention state. And we got out and we explained that we're with the New York Times. We had an appointment to come there.

And they asked us to go into a small room where there was a heated furnace and a couple of chairs. So we waited in this room for more than an hour. I was starting to get nervous because I was told that the camp closes down at around 3, and it was, I think, close to 2 when suddenly I heard a commotion outside. And I walked out, and I saw two women. They were wearing the full burqa, the full face-covering black veil that is typical of the Islamic State,

but they were speaking fluent English with an American accent because they were American. fluent English with an American accent, because they were American. So I invited them into the room where I had been sitting. And at that point, they flipped back their niqabs, their face veil. And I saw that one looked to be in her maybe late 30s or 40s. The other one was clearly a young woman. And I recognized her face. Her name is Hoda

Muthana. She's a young woman from Alabama, 24 years old. She sat down next to me and I turned on my recorder. Can I switch with you so I can hear her better? Yeah, thank you so much. Hoda starts her story in 2014. She says that she came from an ultra conservative Muslim family. She's the daughter of a Yemeni diplomat who moved to the U.S. My whole life I wanted to be like him. So I jumped from being someone that wanted to be a politician to someone that became radical. She described how her mother was so strict with her that not only was she not allowed to go to parties, she didn't have a boyfriend, but she really wasn't even allowed to hang out

with her American friends. I couldn't really do anything growing up, you know, couldn't do any American things. And I'm born and raised in America. I'm just as equal as an American as any blonde hair, blue eyed cow, you know. And I wanted to do things like them and I could never do it. And so since I was given all these restrictions, I just turned to my religion. Her rebellion was to turn inward to the one thing that was allowed, which was her faith, her Muslim faith. And online, she met fellow Muslims. There's the thing that the Muslim community on Twitter used to call like the Muslim Twitter sphere, basically, and I was part of it. Muslim Twittersphere? Yeah. And she essentially became self-taught in Islam, relying on other people, basically in cyberspace, who were preaching an extreme form of the religion to her.

We read verses and interpreted them ourselves. And one of the things they convince themselves of is that when there is a true Islamic state that has been declared, it is obligatory upon them to do what they call hijrah, which is the pilgrimage to the state. I think our main focus was just thinking that it was obligatory on us to be in the caliphate. I was not part of any type of jihad. I didn't, never shot a gun, never used any weapons or anything. I was not part of any type of jihad. I didn't, never shot a gun, never used any weapons or anything. I literally came there because I thought it was a victory on me. And I was very afraid of hell. Very afraid of? Of hell, yeah. She was afraid that if she didn't do this, that she was somehow not following God's law.

I don't know. I thought I was doing the right thing. So what happened is that in 2014, when she was a sophomore at UAB, the University of Alabama, she essentially enrolled in her semester and a couple of days later pulled out of the semester and asked for a refund check for her tuition. This is tuition that

her parents had paid. She used that money to buy herself a plane ticket to Turkey. Tell me about the night before you left. I remember just trying to act as normal as I can to my parents so that they wouldn't really think that anything was happening. She lied to her parents. She said she was going to a university event in Atlanta a couple hours away. I left with a book bag, a heavy book bag. I had just clothes and just basic travel things. And instead she held a cab and went straight to the airport, flew to Turkey. At what point did you call your family to tell them what had happened? I called them in Turkey before I came.

And who did you talk to? My sister. What did you tell your sister? I just told her that I was on a trip. I was on my way into the Syrian border. And did you talk to? My sister. What did you tell your sister? I just told her that I was on a trip. I was on my way into the Syrian border. And did she freak out? Yes, she freaked out. She just screamed.

And my mom started screaming. And within, I think, a day or two, she was smuggled across the border. They smuggled us with cars. They changed the cars a few times times and then we ran through a field while I don't know which factions were shooting at us. They were shooting at you? Yeah.

And entered war-torn Syria. And then after that we were placed in a house. Immediately she's put in a dormitory for single women. She said that she arrived and it was a large house that had hundreds of women from all over the world. She was the only American, which actually speaks to

how few Americans in the end ended up joining this group. And very quickly she realizes that she's a prisoner. There were locks on the doors. There were guards outside. You're not allowed to leave the house until you get married, basically. It was explained to her that you're not leaving these premises until you get married. Now keep in mind, she had just turned 20 when she did this. She'd never had so much as a boyfriend because her parents were so strict.

So she says that she held out for a month. She didn't want to do it. It was scary, but at the point, you just really wanted to leave that house. So you just... There was a woman literally marrying the first man that just came to them just to get out. Every day there was an ISIS official

who was walking around the dorm with a list of eligible bachelors inside the Islamic State. These were fighters that were looking for brides. You just write your preferences down, and then some guy comes with a list of men and you can choose any of them and then you just have a meeting with them. And if you like him, then you get married. In the end, she said that when a girlfriend of hers who was in the same dorm proposed an Australian man that she happened to know, she agreed to meet him. They met with a chaperone.

They spoke for really just a few minutes. And then she let him take her home. Look, you said that Hoda had held out, which is kind of confusing. Did she not know that this was what was expected of women who joined the Islamic State? Isn't that kind of part of the deal? I asked her the same question because I was reading up on the Islamic State? Isn't that kind of part of the deal? I asked her the same question because I was reading up on the Islamic State at the same time that she was going there and it was pretty clear to me from the things that other women inside ISIS were posting that this is what happens. And she said, I did, but I thought there was a way out. I thought I could just talk my way out or something. And I think in the moment she gets there filled with this religious fervor,

thinking that she has now come to fulfill her faith. And then these other things were vexing things that she had to go through in the journey to that faith. She marries this Australian man. He is killed three months after they get married. So now you're a widowed woman inside the caliphate. What happened to you at this point? It was the first of three arranged marriages. She was really embarrassed about this.

She asked me at one point, could you not publish that I had been married three times? And I asked her why. And she said... My mom doesn't know I've been married many times. I've been married three times, actually, and my mom doesn't know. My mom doesn't know. And what does she tell you about what day-to-day life was like

inside the caliphate? She's basically a housewife. She's at home, unable to really leave the premises of the house because women are not allowed outside without a male guardian. I can easily tell you that in these past four years, nothing went on. Yeah. And inside the homes, there's not much going on, unless you have your own projects and you want to study something.

And so she describes a life of boredom. But in fact, this is where I know that she's not telling me the full truth. We have her Twitter feed, and she was posting hateful incitements, calling for attacks in the West, trying to encourage other Westerners to join the Islamic State. trying to encourage other Westerners to join the Islamic State. For example, in January of 2015, she had already been in the Islamic State for a couple of months. She puts out a tweet where she's making fun of Americans who are sitting at home and refusing to come.

She says, there are so many Aussies and Brits here, but where are the Americans? Wake up, you cowards. And then more disturbingly, a couple of months later, we're now in March of 2015, she writes, Americans, wake up. You have much to do while you live under our greatest enemy. Enough of your sleeping. Go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood

or rent a big truck and drive all over them. Wow, so she's explicitly calling. Yeah, explicitly calling for attacks on America. So she wasn't just a housewife. She was a mouthpiece for this terrorist group. When did you start having second thoughts or doubts about your choice to go to the US? I think it was around, I think it was two years after I came. That is around, I think it was two years after I came here.

She told me that she first began to question her reasons for being there two years after she had arrived. So she comes in late 2014, that puts us in late 2016. And what caused her to question this was something quite personal. I was pregnant, very emotional, I missed my family, and I just really thought it over. Really thought, like, what am I doing? And that is the beginning of a transformation where she begins to think, this is not the place where I want to see my child grow up.

It's horrifying. Everything is horrifying. You see executions in the street. You see dead bodies everywhere. You hear bombs. You hear someone screaming. You can't go out and help them for fear of your own life. Screaming to death,

basically, and you can't do anything. It's very traumatising. Actually, since we're here in the camps and we just hear a car passing by, we just duck down because of how afraid we are. She claims that she couldn't run away. They put IEDs in the ground so that if people tried to escape, they'd just be blown up.

Running away was very difficult. If you were caught, you were severely punished, possibly imprisoned and even killed. Keep in mind, at this point in time, ISIS's territory is quickly shrinking. And so Hoda finds herself moving from house to house, essentially chasing the receding shadow of the caliphate. Moving from houses to houses because there was a lot of moving going on from moms and stuff. When Raqqa falls, she is forced to move to the town of Mayadeen. When Mayadeen falls, she moves to a village called Hajin.

From Hajin, she's taken to the village of Shafa. And at that point, she ends up in the very last pocket of ISIS's territorial control in the region. And it's there that she befriends another American woman. And who is this other American woman that Hoda becomes close to? Her name is Kimberly Gwen Pullman. And who is this other American woman that Hoda becomes close to? So, you're from Hamilton? Her name is Kimberly Gwen Pullman. And I have to say, having covered this group for the past five years now, her story is pretty weird. What's your date of birth?

September 29th, 1972. Kimberly is a white woman who is an American-Canadian dual national. Are you from a Christian family? I came from a completely Christian family. Very much so. Dutch. Reformed. Slash Mennonite. Oh, okay. Got it. So you come from a Christian family? I came from a completely Christian family, very much so. Dutch, Reformed, slash Mennonite. Oh, okay, got it. So you come from a really conservative background.

Quite, yes. She was born into a Mennonite Christian community. My grandfather was a minister. My father was a doctor until he died. And at some point in her adult life, she converted to Islam. I had time to spend on wine. I was stuck in bed basically. According to her family, she was struggling with some form of mental illness. And it was during that time that my Facebook was just flooded with pictures of what was happening in Gaza.

By 2014, she had also gone down this online rabbit hole. And then, of course, Syria was ongoing during this time, and that was just stepping up more and more and more. And she made a decision in 2015 to follow a man she had met online into the Islamic State. He said, come where you're loved, come where you're actually needed. They don't need you over there. We need you over here. Where she, too, became ensnared in the same system as Hoda. Unlike Hoda, she describes a much more rapid realization that she had made a mistake.

She said that within a couple of months of being there, she tried to escape. She was very quickly caught by ISIS's intelligence service. They took her to a prison. She was held there for some time time and then she faced the violent punishment that they meted out to her to scare her into submission. And what was that punishment? They raped her. They raped her in retaliation for her attempt to escape. What they did just ripped everything wide open to the point where I no longer wanted to even survive anymore. And I'd become suicidal. It scared the heck out of her.

If her account is true, and I have no way of fact-checking these things that happened deep inside the caliphate, but if her account is true, it explains why she would hold on until the very, very end. And it's at the end of the caliphate when you said that she and Hoda become quite close. That's right. They become close. Yeah. So in this last pocket of ISIS control, they are basically squatting in tents and just trying to survive. The bombs dropping 24-7.

They described to me how there was almost no food. No food for the last month. We were eating cow food and grass. At one point, they were cutting grass from the crevices in the pavement and boiling it to eat. No diapers. No medicine. If you had two diapers, what did you put on them? Towels. Right.

But Kimberly, you trusted her. I trusted her. They begin to trust each other because, of course, both of them at this point want to escape, but that's a very precarious thing to be sharing with somebody else inside the Islamic State. They eventually shared it with each other. The day before I left, I saw her and I said, I need to leave today. This is my last day in here. I need to go now. And with each other's help, they began plotting this escape. And then Hoda got out first. So it got dark and we lost our way and we had to wait till the morning. I just ran for my life, basically. She got into the desert to the screening point where American

forces are waiting for ISIS members who are surrendering. She says that the Americans fingerprinted her and Kimberly came out the next day or a few days later. And so that's how Hoda and Kimberly end up at this detention facility that you visit. Exactly. This is the place where they are taking, by now, the thousands of people that have streamed out into the desert. This is where they're taking them. And in this camp, they're being triaged into ISIS members, ISIS families, ISIS children. And in this camp, they are essentially prisoners. They're able to move between the tents, but they're not able to go beyond the chain link fence. And what do these two women tell you,

now that they are out of the Islamic State and in this facility, that they want? What are they hoping for? Both of them expressed what they said was sincere regret for having joined this group. I didn't. I went from having no knowledge to just going on Twitter, reading a few posts, and just sacrificing my whole life for this caliphate. And once I look back at it, I just can't stress how much of a crazy idea that was. I can't believe it. I ruined my life. I ruined my future. Both of them repeatedly said that they're very sorry for having joined ISIS,

for the things they had said previously. I don't have words for how much regret I have. I wish that I could turn back time. I wish I could have seen. And I wish I had been a lot more knowledgeable and that I hadn't listened. And both of them are essentially begging the U.S. government to take them back. I know this is more personal things, but we really want to stress, we want to come back and we're not a threat and we just regret everything.

I wish I could erase the whole thing. And Rukmini, do you believe them when they say that they are full of regret? Look, it is convenient that they only managed to escape, essentially, in the last couple of weeks of the territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria. I'm curious what the context is for this. What have countries like the U.S. done with ISIS members who have tried to come home in the past?

So, Michael, let me explain that by telling you first what other countries are doing. The approach that we take as a government is to ensure that we protect the British public. That's the key thing. If you look at Canada, if you look at Britain, numerous other European countries have basically done nothing to bring their citizens home.

Europe hasn't yet come up with a clear response over the future of foreign fighters and their families. They haven't taken back their citizens. European countries appear to be reluctant. And the reason for that is a number of factors, among them the fact that they often don't have the same rigor in their terrorism statutes that allows them to prosecute these people effectively. The repatriation of IS fighters would only be possible if it could be guaranteed that these people could immediately be prosecuted.

So they're afraid that if they bring them back, the forensic evidence that they need to be able to have a successful trial is not going to be available. And so essentially they'd be bringing back battle-hardened individuals who is not going to be available. And so essentially, they'd be bringing back battle-hardened individuals who might be forced to go free. The United States, up until now, has in general taken a different tact. In America, we have a very strong law that helps us prosecute people who are linked to terror. And almost all of the men that were captured on the battlefield have already been repatriated to the United States, some of them within days or weeks after being captured. And in fact, just a couple of days ago, President Trump has tweeted saying,

the United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 ISIS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial. President Trump put out a tweet berating our allies, including Britain, France, etc., for not taking back their prisoners. The caliphate is ready to fall, he went on. The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them. He said that these countries need to do their part to bring back their citizens.

The exception is these women. By my count, there are at least 13 people, almost all of them women and children, who are still in these camps and who are American citizens and who have not been brought home. And why is that? So I'm not familiar with all of the cases, but the ones that I've been able to research, I've noticed that there seems to be little technical problems with each of their citizenships.

So for instance, in Huda's case, It's my dad who was a diplomat. I was born the month after he was fired. She is the daughter of a Yemeni diplomat. She was born a month after her father was fired from the UN. And that apparently has created a technicality around her citizenship. Even though you were born American? Even though you were born American. And I've never been anywhere else my whole life.

But you got your passport. I got my passport, but it was immediately revoked after I've traveled. I got my passport, but it was immediately revoked after I've traveled. But beyond that, it's unclear if you can prove crimes that are tied to these women. Women were not combatants, so they're not as culpable as the men in the crimes of the Islamic State. Right. But remember, the women were crucial in the legitimization of the Islamic State as a state. There's no state if there are no women and children. So one of the questions I think the United States is facing and other countries are facing is what should we do with them?

Should these people that perhaps will not face real criminal charges, should they be allowed to come back and join our communities? Should they be allowed to come back and join our communities? Is it okay to have joined this terrorist group and to now say, look, I regret it, I'm sorry, I made a mistake, and be allowed back? Hmm. It feels like there will be many who wonder how there could ever be a gray zone around prosecuting anyone who pledges loyalty to a group who makes its central mission the destruction of Western society, U.S. society,

and a group that has carried out such heinous attacks on American citizens, that that is such a betrayal of U.S. citizenship, how could anyone, any man, any woman, ever be allowed back and enjoy the benefits of U.S. citizenship, how could anyone, any man, any woman, ever be allowed back and enjoy the benefits of U.S. citizenship? I think that's a fair point. And if you think about it, the way in which these women, as well as the men, the way in which they joined the Islamic State

was by renouncing and turning their backs on their country. One of Hoda Muthana's tweets, one of her earliest tweets when she joined the caliphate, was a picture of her holding her American passport and tweeting, Bonfire soon. Meaning she was going to burn her passport, right? There was a really powerful moment in the middle of our interview where Hoda started crying. She broke down.

She started sobbing in front of me. And Kimberly, who was sitting across the room, jumped up and kneeled in front of her. Listen, you're going to be okay. All right? It's going to be okay. And was holding her face in her hands and wiping her tears and reassuring her and telling her. You're going to be all right it's gonna be okay and was holding her face in her hands and wiping her tears and reassuring her and telling her you're gonna be all right it's okay it's okay you're doing great this is tough to talk about but they're not all gonna be against you

all right and in that moment i was convinced at that moment in time of her regret, of her remorsefulness. But the other thing that was going through my mind is, can this ever be forgiven? She willingly joined this group that was hell-bent on destroying the very democracy that we live in, in the United States, in attacking the freedoms that we all take for granted. And I do wonder if this is a mistake, if this is a mistake that one could come back from. Rukmini, thank you very much. It's always a pleasure, Michael. Thank you.

This week, just hours after we spoke to Rukmini in Syria, President Trump announced that the United States would not allow Hoda Muthana to return home. His Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, released a statement saying that the U.S. does not consider Muthana an American citizen, but did not offer a rationale for why that's the case. Legal experts told the Times they believe that the technicality of her Yemeni background would not invalidate her citizenship, and that taking an oath of allegiance to a terrorist group

would not be grounds for revoking citizenship. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. The Times reports that after an 18-month probe that brought indictments against dozens of individuals from Washington to Moscow, special counsel Robert Mueller is wrapping up his investigation

into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and will issue a final report to the Justice Department in the coming weeks. The fate of that report remains unclear. Government rules require Mueller to brief the Attorney General on his conclusions and for the Attorney General to then brief Congress. But the law does not require that the conclusions become public.

And. But the law does not require that the conclusions become public. And Hope Francis began a historic summit on preventing child sex abuse inside the Catholic Church by calling for, quote, concrete and effective measures to stop the misconduct, saying that condemnations are not enough. The summit, held in Rome, is intended to give church leaders clear guidelines for how to deal with accusations of abuse and end the practice of burying such claims. We humbly and sorrowfully admit that wounds have been inflicted by us, bishops. On Thursday morning, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila

addressed past victims of sexual abuse. Our lack of response to the suffering of victims, even to the point of rejecting them and covering up the scandal to protect perpetrators and the institution, has injured our people, leaving a deep wound in our relationship with those we are sent to serve. The Daily is produced by Theo Balcom, Lindsay Garrison, Rachel Quester, Annie Brown, Andy Mills, Ike Srees-Kanaraja, Claire Tennisgetter, Michael Simon-Johnson, Jessica Chung, Alexandra Lee Young, and Jonathan Wolfefe and edited by Paige Cowan Larissa Anderson and Wendy Dorr

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That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.