The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria carried out acts of
barbarity that horrified the most jaded of observers. So why would a
woman with a good job, a loving husband and a close family leave it all
behind to join them?
When three young men from the neighbourhood go to for Syria to fight for
ISIS, outreach worker Sophie Kasiki finds herself supporting their
distraught families. It's not long until the three reach out to Sophie
online. She agrees to talk, believing she can convince them to come
back.
Instead, the opposite happens. Over the next two months, the men use
their knowledge of her character and motivation to convince her to come
for a short visit "to help the Syrian people." Telling her husband she's
going to volunteer in a Turkish orphanage, Sophie leaves for Raqqa -
taking their four-year-old son with her.
Swiftly disillusioned with what she sees, she tries to leave only to
find herself held captive for months by her former friends and then
handed over to one of the regime's infamous "guesthouses" for women.
Miraculously, she escapes to tell her story.
In the first English language account published by an Islamic State
returnee, Sophie attempts to unpick the reasons why she went and to warn
others from taking the same path.
