Cockburn: ISIS Brainwashes Brides into Becoming Suicide Bombers

LONDON- Patrick Cockburn, the British writer and journalist, has revealed that the terrorist organization calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) brainwashes women and girls, who join the organization’s ranks in Syria and Iraq, as to become suicide bombers.

The Independent newspaper published on Saturday a report by Cockburn based on interviews he made with some women who fled life under ISIS rule in Iraq after refusing to obey the orders and takfiri instructions issued by the organization.    

According to the report, one of the women whom the writer met told him that the terrorist organization holds brainwashing courses for women and girls and prepares them to be ready to “sacrifice”; a term used by ISIS to convince women carry out suicide bombings.

The writer said one of the methods adopted by ISIS in recruiting women is through issuing a fatwa ordering them to obey their terrorist husbands in all matters including becoming suicide bombers.  

According to Cockburn, Aysha, a 32-year-old mother of two children, decided to flee her home in Mosul. She recalls that her husband did not ask her directly to be a suicide bomber, but gradually started talking about it. “He was coming home once a week,” she told The Independent, “but recently he came home every day, and finally asked me to attend a new course showing how a Muslim woman could support Muslim society with her soul and body”.

Aysha, which is not her real name, attended the course for two days along with many other women. She was appalled by what she heard. She says “the course was a sort of brainwashing, teaching women to sacrifice cheap worldly things – blood, flesh, soul – for the victory of more precious things – religion, Allah, the Prophet, and, most importantly, the eternal afterlife”.

But instead of being persuaded by these teachings, Aysha was thinking about her children and how to rescue them from the situation she found herself in. So she fled with the help of a cousin who knew many smugglers in Mosul. It cost her about $1,200 (£760) to flee with her son and daughter, the writer said.

Hamda Mustafa