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Discussion: My ISIS boyfriend: Reporter’s undercover life with terrorist
Member Since: 1/7/2010
Posts: 4,967
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My ISIS boyfriend: Reporter’s undercover life with terrorist
 I know this is so long to read. But this is actually good story about what is going on to some of these girls. I quoted the important stuff. But there is a link below.
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The young woman sitting in a Parisian cafe could be meeting a friend for lunch. Her figure-hugging purple top sets off her dark hair and intelligent eyes, and her hands are heavy with rings.
Every so often she glances out of the window, but she is not checking whether her friend has arrived: She is nervously hoping the police officer assigned to keep her safe is not too far away.
Anna Erelle is living in terror, having crossed ISIS, also known as the Islamic State. She has received death threats and abuse online and a video of her is circulating accompanied by Arabic text that reads: “Brothers around the world, if you see her, kill her.”
On her smartphone, Erelle has a CCTV picture of three British girls — Shamima Begum, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15 — as they passed through Gatwick airport two weeks ago in flowing scarves and skinny jeans, en route to join ISIS in Syria.
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It was not actually Erelle who wanted to travel to Syria but “Melodie,” a 20-year-old would-be jihadist bride she created on the Internet. Erelle, 32, is a journalist with a weekly news magazine in Paris who specializes in covering the Middle East.
Two years ago, she carried out a series of interviews with teenagers in the banlieues, the poverty-stricken suburbs of Paris which have become a breeding ground for extremism, and was intrigued by how many young Muslims had been radicalized.
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ISIS fighter Abou-Bilel asked “Melodie” to join him in Syria.
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My ISIS boyfriend
She decided to join the young Muslim community online and created a fake profile on Facebook and Twitter. Little was known about the growing links between extremists and Muslim teenagers then, and even now the scale of the network is a surprise: Sultana, one of the missing British girls believed to have crossed the border to Syria, was following more than 70 extremists on Twitter and had amassed more than 11,000 followers.
Erelle’s intention was to observe exchanges online and build up a picture of how youngsters were being radicalized in France. Then came something unexpected: Melodie attracted the attention of Abou-Bilel, one of ISIS’s senior commanders in Raqqa (pictured, top). He fell in love with her, proposed marriage and invited her to join him in the caliphate.
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Erelle picked up the first of Bilel’s messages around 10 o’clock on a warm evening last April as she threw herself down on the sofa after a day at work and clicked in to see what Melodie’s “friends” had been up to: “Salaam alaikum, sister. I see you have watched my video. It has been seen round the world, it’s crazy! Are you a Muslim? What do you think of the mujaheddin? Are you thinking of coming to Syria?”
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Erelle was astonished. Bilel was a French-born fighter of Algerian descent who had allied himself in Iraq to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ISIS leader, and moved with him to Syria.
Melodie had been online only a few days but she had already made a wide circle of friends, sharing videos and conversations about jihad. She was supposed to be a girl from a poor area in the south of France whose mother worked long hours and who had no father or brother.
Melodie answered Bilel tentatively, telling him she was a convert and wanted to learn to be a good Muslim. Her messages were accompanied by lots of smiley faces. He was more than encouraging.
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“WHEN YOU GET HERE, YOU’LL BE TREATED LIKE A PRINCESS,” HE PROMISED.
Over the next few days, he sent pictures of himself with his 4×4 Jeep and holding a gun. Soon he was telling her that he loved her and she must come to Syria.
“When you get here, you’ll be treated like a princess,” he promised.
“This is why girls go there,” said Erelle. “It’s the dream of a good life. They are persuaded that it’s a paradise and that they don’t have any future in Britain or France and they won’t find good husbands and can never be good Muslims surrounded by infidels. Bilel told Melodie she could have a beautiful life, a big apartment and lots of children.”
Very soon, Bilel wanted to talk to her in person, on Skype.
“I didn’t see the face of a man who would kill or rape — he boasted that he had killed ‘dozens’ of infidels — and those first few seconds were unforgettable,” she said. “He was staring at me and when I looked back into his eyes I saw nothing, no religion, no feeling. He is not a good man.”
She was not sure she could get away with posing as someone 10 years younger, but Erelle is small and slim and once she had put on a hijab and minimized her makeup, it seemed to work.
“It was very strange to act nice with a terrorist, to be cute and to be saying, ‘Hey, tell me about your day!’ I thought I would feel uncomfortable in a hijab, but the costume helped. When I put it on, I wasn’t me anymore.”
Bilel was delighted. “You make me laugh a lot!” he told her. As his trust grew, so he began to talk more about his life as a fighter.
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Life of adventure
Bilel’s real name was Rachid and he had grown up in Roubaix in northern France.
Erelle has since learned he had a series of convictions for petty crime and jumped bail to go to Iraq when he was radicalized in 2000. As one of Baghdadi’s right-hand men, he had three jobs in Syria: recruitment, the collecting of taxes and commanding troops.
New recruits were arriving every day from Europe, he told her. “They learn Arabic in the morning and shooting in the afternoon.” The recruits shared a dormitory and would be lectured by a “spiritual guide” in the evenings.
“After two weeks, they would be assessed and the clever ones picked out for special duties, like counter-espionage.”
AT FIRST I WANTED TO FEEL SOMETHING FOR HIM BECAUSE I LIKE TO THINK THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING GOOD IN HUMANS … BUT THERE IS NOTHING HUMAN IN HIM.
He spoke of his admiration for suicide bombers — “Here we assess strength in two ways, through faith and courage. The suicide bombers are the strongest of us all.” — and joked about how he preferred converts like Melodie, because they were “rigorous in religion, but open in life.”
“You can see how a girl like Melodie would be mesmerized,” said Erelle. “She feels like a nobody and all of a sudden here is this man of 38, nearly twice her age, who has had all these incredible adventures, who is kind to her and telling her he loves her and wanting to talk to her 1,000 times a day.”
Once Melodie became known as Bilel’s fiancée, she grew into a minor celebrity among her Islamic friends on the Internet.
At first, Melodie refused when Bilel tried to persuade her to come to Raqqa. She could not leave her mother, she said. She was frightened of traveling such a long way.
“He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He would say ‘when you arrive’ you can help look after orphans until you have your own children, or visit wounded soldiers.
“He took it for granted I would obey. He wanted to know if I had enough money for a plane ticket. He told me he and his organization were rich and that I would be paid the money back.”
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Smuggled to Syria
The French police were on alert for girls leaving for Syria last summer, so Bilel said she should travel first to Amsterdam, to throw the authorities off the scent. Melodie had finally agreed to come to Syria if she could bring her (fictitious) 15-year-old friend Yasmin.
“He said, ‘Say you are sleeping at Yasmin’s house for the night and vice versa.’ When I got to Amsterdam, I was to throw away my phone and buy a new one and only then ring him, from the new number, to tell him what time we would arrive on a flight from Amsterdam to Istanbul.”
In Istanbul, Melodie and Yasmin would be met by a woman sent by ISIS, a “maman” who would accompany them to Syria. Erelle decided she would keep up the pretense to that point.
“I wanted to meet this ‘maman,’” she said. “I am a woman and I don’t understand how another woman could give very young girls to these men in marriage. So it was personal. I wanted to see her face.”
There was one further instruction: Melodie was to pick up some treats for Bilel at duty-free, including after-shave. He told her he liked Egoiste by Chanel.
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“Here is something else about these fighters,” said Erelle. “They say they reject the West, that they are anti-capitalist, but they love luxury and designer labels, it’s all Nike trainers and Ray-Ban sunglasses mixed in with their military clothes. It’s another way of luring in kids, of saying, ‘I was once poor like you but look at me now.’”
In Amsterdam, there was a problem. Bilel said she and “Yasmin” would have to proceed alone because it was not safe for the “maman” to travel. Once in Istanbul, they should take an internal flight to Urfa, southeast Turkey, again paying cash, and await instructions. Melodie said she was frightened.
“You are a big girl,” Bilel reassured her. “Dozens of Europeans are making that journey every week in the hope of joining our ranks. Allez, ma lionne!”
But Melodie refused to budge, saying there were police everywhere and she wanted to go home.
HE WAS STARING AT ME AND WHEN I LOOKED BACK INTO HIS EYES I SAW NOTHING, NO RELIGION, NO FEELING. HE IS NOT A GOOD MAN.
“For the first time I started to argue with him. He didn’t like that,” said Erelle. “He began to yell, he was very frightening. He was angry at me for refusing to complete the journey. He said, ‘You’ve made a fool of me in front of the hierarchy here.’ That would not easily be forgiven.”
It was time to cut all ties, but that was not easy. Still believing Melodie existed, Bilel called and said: “I know who you are, it would be a matter of minutes to find you and kill you.”
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Enemy of ISIS
Erelle returned to Paris and wrote a story about Melodie for her magazine last May. She has now written a book, “In the Skin of a Jihadist.”
The article was written under an assumed name. “Erelle” is her second pseudonym. Once the piece was published and the full extent of Melodie’s betrayal made apparent, Erelle became a target.
She has had to change her phone number several times and has moved. Alarmingly, shortly after Melodie broke contact, Bilel called her from a French number. She has had numerous death threats to Melodie’s Skype account.
She has written a book she cannot admit to, and since the Charlie Hebdo massacre on Jan. 7, she has had police protection.
A few months ago, Bilel was reported to have been killed.
“I don’t know if that’s correct, or if he is aware of my true identity.” All she knows is that, despite everything, she would do the same again. “For sure,” she said.
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http://nypost.com/2015/03/07/my-isis...h-a-terrorist/
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Member Since: 8/1/2012
Posts: 25,037
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Let's hope he really died like they think
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Member Since: 12/21/2011
Posts: 12,474
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She's so brave 
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ATRL Senior Member
Member Since: 3/22/2012
Posts: 53,769
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Holy ****, that's terrifying.
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Member Since: 8/13/2012
Posts: 32,832
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wow amazing woman, for exposing that trash I hope he died and his friends will soon follow him to the pits of hell 
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Member Since: 12/9/2009
Posts: 13,069
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This was a really interesting read. It's also not surprising that this has happened. Time and time again, history has shown that problematic groups are always born out of poverty. This is why capitalism is garbage, I swear we're just going in circles all the time.
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 43,331
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Excellent article. Very interesting.
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Member Since: 3/26/2012
Posts: 37,592
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That's terrifying  She's so brave though, I respect her 1000%.
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/18/2013
Posts: 3,968
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Wow. I applaud her bravery
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 1/6/2010
Posts: 4,761
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 This was one very interesting yet scary story! I hope she gets to live a normal life without the fear of persecution by these terrorists though. 
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/31/2012
Posts: 12,510
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She's amazing.
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“Here is something else about these fighters,” said Erelle. “They say they reject the West, that they are anti-capitalist, but they love luxury and designer labels, it’s all Nike trainers and Ray-Ban sunglasses mixed in with their military clothes. It’s another way of luring in kids, of saying, ‘I was once poor like you but look at me now.’”
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Why am I not surprised.
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Member Since: 1/2/2014
Posts: 23,393
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Slay sis. That is why intelligence > violence. Good for her. But I hope she stays safe.
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Member Since: 3/3/2014
Posts: 3,453
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Originally posted by Buyonce1814
Slay sis. That is why intelligence > violence. Good for her. But I hope she stays safe.
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intelligence is your greatest weapon i have never felt so scarred in my entire life when i watched the video of ISIS beheading and shooting people dead
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Member Since: 1/1/2013
Posts: 17,232
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Wow
She must be so brave, I was barely able to breathe while reading the whole thing
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Banned
Member Since: 4/4/2014
Posts: 2,554
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Damn she's gonna win the Pulitzer
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Member Since: 1/2/2014
Posts: 23,393
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Originally posted by DouglasBooth
intelligence is your greatest weapon i have never felt so scarred in my entire life when i watched the video of ISIS beheading and shooting people dead |
I watched one - never again. It was disgusting.
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Member Since: 3/3/2014
Posts: 3,453
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Originally posted by Buyonce1814
I watched one - never again. It was disgusting.
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which one? i watched 3 
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Member Since: 8/17/2013
Posts: 1,865
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Member Since: 1/2/2014
Posts: 23,393
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Originally posted by DouglasBooth
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It was one of the first ones  . Then I think the UK police said they can prosecute anyone that watches them  . Not that I'd want to watch them after watching the first one.
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