Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Escaped Yazidi Sex-Slave Describes Life in the Islamic State

One of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's sex-slaves escaped and returned to her family. She is now telling the world what we already know: non-Muslim women under ISIS rule are brutally raped and beaten.
Zeinat, an Escaped Yazidi Sex-Slave
(CNN)—When ISIS came for Zeinat and her family, they ran, terrified, for the safety of the mountains. They had heard the horror stories and knew only too well what might happen to them if they stayed in their home.

But they were too late; stranded at the foot of Iraq's Mount Sinjar by the huge crowds of refugees struggling uphill, they were easy pickings when fighters arrived.

Separated first from her father, and then from her sisters, she was forced -- like thousands of Yazidi women -- into slavery, treated as the property of the so-called "Islamic State."

Zeinat, though, wasn't working for ordinary rank-and-file ISIS militants; instead she was handpicked to serve terror boss Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his family and friends.

Speaking exclusively to CNN, Zeinat (not her real name), 16, has told of how al-Baghdadi beat and mistreated her. She also says he raped American hostage Kayla Mueller, who was held captive by the group after being taken hostage in 2013.

"He treated us so badly," she says, her beautiful, expressive blue eyes peering out fearfully from behind a rust-red tasseled headscarf as she relates her harrowing ordeal at the hands of one of the world's most wanted men.

"He would always tell us: Forget your father and your brothers. We have killed them. And we have married off your mothers and sisters. Forget them."

ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Selected by the terrorist leader -- though she did not know who he was at the time -- at a slave market in "a white palace ... between the mountain and the sea," Zeinat and eight other girls were taken to his home in Raqqa, Syria, the de facto capital of ISIS' territory.

As soon as she arrived, she says, she was made to watch a video showing ISIS fighters beheading a Westerner and threatened with the same fate unless she agreed to abandon her Yazidi faith.

"There was a journalist, an American journalist, and there was a man dressed all in black," she remembers. "He killed the journalist. He beheaded him."

Zeinat's description matches widely circulated ISIS videos of the killings of James Foley, Steven Sotloff and other Western hostages.

"(Al-Baghdadi) showed us this on the laptop, and they said to me, 'If you don't convert to Islam, this will happen to you -- we will behead all of you,'" she recalls.

"'You have two choices,' they said. 'Convert to Islam. Or die like this.'"

The Yazidis, a small Iraqi minority who believe in a single god who created the Earth and left it in the care of a peacock angel, have been subjected to large-scale persecution by ISIS, which accuses them of devil worship.

ISIS militants have kidnapped, raped, tortured and massacred thousands of Yazidis; the United Nations has accused ISIS of committing genocide against them.

Al-Baghdadi and his family were constantly moving from one home to another, one town to the next, Zeinat says; the day after she arrived, an airstrike destroyed the house next door, forcing the entire household to pack up and move on.

Zeinat says she was beaten by al-Baghdadi, who insisted she and the other women "belonged" to ISIS, and taunted by his three wives and six children while cooking and cleaning for them.

In the face of such brutal abuse, she became determined to run away. On one occasion, she and others managed to steal the keys to the house they were being held in.

"We got the key and unlocked the door. We ran and ran ... we saw a house just outside Aleppo ... and there was an Arab woman. She said, 'Come in, come in. I will help you and bring you to Iraq.' ... She said ... she would help us, but then she called Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi."

She says ISIS militants -- and al-Baghdadi himself -- took retribution.

"They beat us all over our bodies," she recalls. "We were completely black from the beating. They beat us with everything: cables, belts and wooden sticks.

"(Al-Baghdadi) hit me (with a) garden hose and (a) belt. Then he slapped my face and my nose bled," she says, touching her left cheek to indicate where the blows fell.

Zeinat's arm was dislocated, she says: "Even now, when I carry something I still feel pain." Her friend suffered a broken bone in her face.

"Al-Baghdadi told us, 'We beat you because you ran away from us. We chose you to convert to our religion. We chose you. You belong to the Islamic State.'"

The former slave says she did not realize at the time who her captor was, only discovering his true identity once she had escaped: "I was so scared again, and very upset. I can't imagine he was the leader of ISIS. I was so frightened. He could have killed me."

Zeinat says that while in ISIS captivity she became close to U.S. hostage Kayla Mueller: "She was a friend, she was like a sister to me."

Zeinat says the pair met in a "jail" in Raqqa, where she was held as part of her punishment for trying to run away from al-Baghdadi's household.

Kayla Mueller
"The first time I entered the room, I saw Kayla. I thought she was Yazidi, so I spoke in Kurdish to her. She told me, 'I don't understand,' so I spoke to her in Arabic. ... I told her I am a Yazidi girl from Sinjar and I was captured by Daesh (ISIS).'

"After that we stayed together and became like sisters."

They were kept together at the jail for several weeks, Zeinat says.

"There was so little room (in the cell), and it was dark, with no power. It was summer and it was so hot," she says, explaining they were given bread and cheese in the morning, and rice or macaroni at night, "Just a little bit, and we were starving."

Later, Zeinat says, they were moved to a house belonging to Abu Sayyaf, a high-ranking ISIS fighter who U.S. officials say was in charge of ISIS's substantial oil revenues.

Mueller, she says, confided that she had been raped by al-Baghdadi.

"When Kayla came back to us (after being taken to see al-Baghdadi), we asked her, 'Why are you crying?' And Kayla told us al-Baghdadi said: 'I am going to marry you by force and you are going to be my wife. If you refuse, I will kill you.'

"Kayla told me specifically ... 'Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi raped me.' (She said he raped her) four times."

The humanitarian worker, who was captured in northern Syria in 2013, is believed to have been killed in February of this year. (Continue Reading.)
For more on women in Islam, watch this:

4 comments:

Unknown said...

In www.mirror.uk news Iraqi woman shot and killed ISIS commander who captured her making her a sex slave. Wonder if she shot away his ability to reproduce should he possibly survive? So glad the woman above escaped. Hope this woman who killed this man escaped.

I noticed news reported ISIS as following a very narrow tiny interpretation of koran..or as Osama A. explains ..its all a Jewish mossad plot

I liked the analogy found in something you David Wood wrote discussing how bed bugs rape and the current bed bug epidemic.

This proves nature is for the most part still under the fall..as is ISIS. They are similar..both rapists..both epidemic..both reproducing fast :).

Scripture text coming to mind states quote all nature longs for the glorious revealing of the sons of God. endquote
Other scripture seems to suggest that nature is waiting and needs the sons of God to effect it and put it back into healthy right order.

apostlepaul said...

Mr. Woods - finally after a long absence you are back posting again... I was going to file a missing persons report on you.

Bob said...

But wait! My Moslem friend says that "there is no compulsion in religion"! How ever could this be??

Val said...

David Wood, I have a question. I heard that Muhammad forbade sexual intercourse with Pagen women. I don't know if this is true. But, I noticed that the ISIS fighters forced the Yazidi girl to convert to Islam before raping her.

If the Yazidi girl has converted to Islam, how is it legal that another Muslim own her as a slave?

Aren't they required under Muhammad's declarations to be kind and generous to other Muslims?

Once the girl converts to Islam shouldn't she be freed?