ISIS slaves lift lid on ‘true face' of Syria's ex-jihadi Al Qaeda-linked leader… & warn West shouldn't trust him

The Sun

15 hours ago

TWO former slaves have issued a stark warning to the West about Syria's new 'reformer' president Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Yazidi women Fatima & Nada - who were kidnapped by ISIS, and whose names we have changed to protect their identities - have pleaded with Western leaders not to trust the former jihadi warlord.
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And both of them claimed to have met al-Sharaa while they were enslaved - who was then known by his moniker Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.
Nada - who was snatched by ISIS and forced into slavery- told The Sun: 'He is dangerous - he is very dangerous.'
Meanwhile, Fatima - who had at least 60 members of her family killed by the death cult - said: 'Many of them now who were [al-Qaeda or ISIS] are now claiming to be moderate.
"I don't believe him.'
President al-Sharaa now positions himself as an outward looking moderate, renouncing his jihadism and swapping his combat fatigues for a suit after deposing dictator Bashar al-Assad.
But questions remain over his history and his grip on power - with disturbing reports of ISIS-esque atrocities being committed in Syria by groups linked to his regime.
Fatima and Nada accused the then al-Jolani and his terror group Jabhat al-Nusra of being 'no different' than ISIS.
Both are speaking out as they still feel the agony of what was done to them by the jihadi groups - along with their fellow Yazidis.
While both were happy to provide historic pictures of themselves, they declined to be pictured or named as of today - fearing reprisals from jihadis still on the loose.
The Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking minority group who were brutalised by ISIS - with around 5,000 killed while more than 10,000 were enslaved and trafficked.
How Shamima Begum camps are fermenting twisted next generation of ISIS as kids make 'cutthroat' gesture & hurl firebombs
Both Fatima & Nada lost family members - with many still missing - and both were tortured, abused and forced into slavery by ISIS.
With al-Sharaa's personal history steeped in jihadism - as well as their claims to have seen him meeting with ISIS emirs in 2015 - they fear what his ascension will mean for Syria and the Middle East.
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Both slaves - now freed - bravely gave their testimony to Brit squaddie turned documentarian Alan Duncan.
Duncan fought against ISIS with the Kurdish Peshmerga - but now uses his camera to expose the crimes of ISIS and other jihadi groups, particularly working on the plight of the Yazidis.
He has previously reported on testimony against Shamima Begum - and investigated the camps in northern Syria currently holding ISIS fighters.
Both women have spoken out as last week Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy met with al-Sharaa - pledging nearly £100m in humanitarian aid to Syria.
And this week the US has reportedly decided to delist his current group - Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the successor to the brutal al-Nusra - as a terrorist organisation.
One of the former slaves, who we are naming only as Nada - explained how she met al-Jolani in 2015 while she was being held captive in Syria.
'HE CAME TO PRAY'
She said she was "owned" at the time by an ISIS emir.
Nada alleged she saw al-Jolani twice during her captivity in Syria, where the emir would bring him to his house to pray before the two would hold "meetings".
The meetings would involve al-Jolani and around 10 militant commanders who would arrive at the compound.
She described that al-Jolani was treated as a guest of honour, being seen with a level of respect usually reserved for figures like ISIS leader al-Baghdadi.
Nada said: 'In 100-years I won't forget a face. I saw him twice. We were face-to-face.'
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Nada described how she was asked to bring food to them - but the ISIS members described him as a "big man" and said he was "special".
She did not know the subject of the meetings, with the slaves of course not being present during the apparent talks.
She warned Western politicians 'not to believe' that al-Jolani was reformed - warning he could 'kill many people again'.
She went on: 'Trump, the British, the Europeans, they can't see him. He is still dangerous. I am sad and angry.'
She said she remains convinced that he still has jihadist sympathies, 'he still has it here (in his head)'.
'It is hard to change that,' she told The Sun.
Nada was held prisoner for two years by ISIS along with her children working as slaves, and she described being 'hurt' every day.
Her husband is still missing and she revealed young children in her extended family were forced to serve in the so-called "Cubs of the Caliphate" - ISIS's equivalent of the Hitler Youth.
The family was subject to forced conversations while living with ISIS - with the jihadis threatening to kill her children if she didn't obey them.
'IF THEY LIKED US - THEY WOULD BUY US'
Fatima also explained how her whole family was captured by ISIS - with many of them being killed, including her 5 uncles, her grandmother, and her husband & cousins.
She said at least 60 members of her extended family ended up being wiped out by the jihadi death cult.
And she claims she ended up being held alongside the sister-in-law of human rights activist Nadia Murad, a Nobel prize-winning former Yazidi slave who was kidnapped when she was 19 and worked with Amal Clooney to draw attention to the genocide.
Those who survived were taken and the women ended up being sold at a slave market in Mosul, Iraq - with people from all over the world who were working with ISIS.
She even revealed her son in a photo taken of the ISIS 'caliphate cub' - saying her boy was then trained to be a suicide bomber.
Fatima was eventually sold to a senior ISIS emir who was being hunted by the Americans.
And she also says she saw al-Jolani twice in 2015.
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The genocide of the Yazidis
By Henry Holloway, Deputy Foreign Editor
FEW people suffered more under the vicious boot of ISIS than the Yazidis.
Thousands of women and girls from the Kurdish minority group were forced into sexual slavery by the vicious terror group.
And the terrorists simply killed all the group's men they could get their blood-stained hands on.
It is estimated at least 5,000 Yazidis were killed, at least 10,000 kidnapped, and some 500,000 were forced to leave their homes.
The United Nations recognises the barbarity as nothing short of genocide.
ISIS first attacked the Yazidis during their bloody rise to power in 2014, butchering their way through their communities in northern Iraq.
Massacres were widespread - with victims being gunned down, beheaded or even buried alive.
Disturbing accounts detail atrocities such as a mother being forced to eat pieces of her own baby, or women being burned alive for refusing to have sex with ISIS fighters.
Mass graves are still being discovered from this period - with 30 more bodies discovered this month in Hamadan.
But those who weren't killed were forced into slavery by ISIS.
Yazidi women and children were bought, sold and subjected to forced conversation to ISIS's warped version of Islam.
They were turned into slaves - sold, raped and abused,
Yazidi women who were pregnant were given forced abortions - and then raped by ISIS fighters so they could give birth to "Muslim babies".
ISIS considered Yazidis "devil worshippers" because of their religious beliefs.
The survivors are still reeling from the horrors inflicted upon them by ISIS - and they want justice.
Germany has managed to convict ISIS fighters of genocide for their crimes against the Yazidis - and meanwhile, probes are also being carried out by the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden.
Britain however - for whatever reason - appears to not be pursuing ISIS fighters for their complicity in the crimes against the Yazidis.
It is estimated some 2,700 Yazidis remain missing across the Middle East.
Many families remain desperate that loved ones they lost may one day return to them - just like the incredible case of slave Fawzia, who was rescued from Gaza in 2024.
She said: 'We were told a very important person was coming so we had to clean and prepare for him.'
The then slave even cooked for the warlord - with it being the duty of the slaves to serve and prepare food for the emirs and their guests.
She explained there is no way the then al-Jolani would not have known there were slaves present.
And that Murad's sister-in-law was also present when they met the warlord.
All the slaves had to line up to greet him and the other emirs when they arrived at the house by car.
And she claimed that slaves were even sold at these meetings, with her emir offering them to his guests.
'If they liked us - they would buy us, it was like a market for women and kids,' she said.
She said she recognised his laugh and his smile, adding: 'It was him, for sure.
"Not 100%, 200%.'
Much like Nada, she feels deep hurt that the perpetrators and enablers of the crimes against the Yazidis have never been held accountable.
AL-SHARAA OR AL-JOLANI?
Born in Saudi Araba, al-Sharaa was a member of al-Qaeda fighting against the US in Iraq, spending five years in American jails, before being dispatched to set up the al-Nusra terror group in Syria by eventual ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Al-Sharaa met with the al-Baghdadi while both were being held by the US - and the two were allies during the formative years of the group that would become ISIS.
Leading al-Nusra, he ended up with a bounty of £8million on his head from the US and was on a list of most wanted terrorists by the FBI.
ISIS and al-Nusra were opposing forces - with al-Nusra resisting a merger in 2013 and also breaking its ties with al-Qaeda in 2016.
ISIS was known for its obsence levels of violence which it paraded in cinematic videos online, but al-Jolani's al-Nusra also carried out atrocities such as torture and public executions, according to Amnesty International.
But there are reports of the two groups cooperating amid the carnage in Syria in the mid-2010s.
It was reported by The Guardian in 2014 that ISIS and al-Nusra leaders were holding meetings about how to combat US-led strikes.
And Al Arabiya reported that Nusra members were pressuring the leadership to reconcile with ISIS also in 2014.
By the middle of 2015- al-Qaeda had essentially declared war on ISIS.
Al-Sharaa, born in Riyadh and now aged 42, has repeatedly claimed to have renounced his jihadi roots and is presenting himself as a reformer for Syria.
He led the HTS to depose brutal dictator Basher al-Assad - leaving him fleeing into the arms of his pal Vladimir Putin and now sitting in exile in Moscow.
But while Assad is gone and hopes are growing for a new Syria, fears remain that al-Sharaa has a fragile grip on the groups that put him into power.
What is happening to the Alawites in Syria?
BENEATH the veil of high-powered meetings with the West, disturbing reports of massacres, kidnap and enslavement is sweeping Syria.
This is particularly targeting a religious minority called Alawites - with chilling echoes of the horrors inflicted on the Yazidis by ISIS.
According to a Reuters investigation, at least 1,500 Alawites were killed during three days of massacres from March 7 to 9 - with evidence of involvement from Syria's new leaders.
The new government is led by a now-dissolved Islamist faction, formerly known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which was previously al-Qaeda's Syria branch, known as the Nusra Front.
Reuters found that the spate of violence came in response to a rebellion organised by former officers loyal to ousted President Bashar al-Assad.
And it revealed a chain of command leading from the attackers directly to men who serve alongside Syria's new leaders in Damascus led by al-Sharaa.
The investigation uncovered 40 sites of killings, rampages and looting against the Alawites.
Many in Syria resent the religious minority - who enjoyed a high level of influence inside the military and government during Assad's iron-fist two-decade rule.
Some of the attackers responding to the March uprising had lists of names of men to target - including former members of Assad militias.
Families with those surnames would later appear on lists of the dead handwritten by village elders.
Survivors told Reuters how the bodies of loved ones were mutilated.
Horrifying footage showed fighters humiliating Alawite me - forcing them to crawl and howl like dogs.
Among the dead were entire families, including women, children, the elderly and disabled people in dozens of Alawite villages and neighbourhoods.
In one case, an entire Alawite town was destroyed overnight with its hundreds of residents replaced by Sunnis.
And at least a dozen factions under the new government's command took part in the killings, according to Reuters.
Nearly half of them have been under sanctions for human rights abuses, including killings, kidnapping, and sexual assaults.
The units involved in the killings included:
The government's General Security Service, its main law-enforcement body back in the days when HTS ran Idlib and now part of the Interior Ministry
Ex-HTS units like the elite Unit 400 fighting force and the Othman Brigade
Sunni militias that had just joined the government's ranks, including the Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade and Hamza division, which were both sanctioned by the European Union for their role in the deaths
President al-Sharaa has ordered an investigation into the violence and set up 'civil peace' mediations.
An official in the new government, Ahmed al-Shami, said: "The Alawite sect is not on any list, black, red or green.
"It's not criminalized and it's not targeted for retaliation. The Alawites faced injustice just like the rest of the Syrian people in general.
'The sect needs safety. It's our duty as a government which we will work on.'
But the massacre of Alawites is continuing, Reuters found.
Beneath the surface of high-powered meetings with the West, there are disturbing reports of massacres, kidnap and enslavement in Syria.
And this is particularly targeting the Alawite group - with chilling reminders of the horrors inflicted on the Yazidis by ISIS.
At least 1,5000 Alawites are reported to have been killed across Syria - and there have been reports of dozens of women being subject to rape, forced marriage of kidnapping.
Much of this violence is carried out by the factions under the control of al-Sharaa's government, reported a detailed investigation by Reuters.
Al-Sharaa himself has condemned the violence - and has seemingly vowed to punish those responsible.
Amnesty International have called on al-Sharaa to publish a full and transparent investigation into the massacres.
The United Nations is expected to publish a report saying they have found no "active links" between al-Sharaa's government and his former allies al-Qaeda.
Duncan formerly served with the Queen's Own Highlanders and Royal Irish Regiment.
He then fought alongside the Kurdish Peshmergas as a sniper to battle against ISIS.
And after the war was over, he decided to use his camera as his new weapon in exposing the depravity of the jihadi cult's crimes.
His most famous story was the rescue of Naveen Rasho - a Yazidi woman who was held as a slave by ISIS in Syria, which is available to watch on Vimeo.
One of Naveen's captors - an ISIS bride known as Nadine K - has since been jailed in Germany for her role in the genocide.
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From jihad to reform…who is al-Sharraa?
BASHAR al-Assad was toppled by rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa - known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani at the time.
The Islamist once fought for al-Qaeda and ISIS and was inspired to be a jihadi by the 9/11 terror attacks.
His group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HST) was the driver behind the lightning offensive that deposed Assad.
And President al-Sharaa - who fought with al-Qaeda in Iraq following the US 2003 invasion - is now in the driving seat.
He was first drawn to jihadist thinking following the September 11 terror attacks in New York.
In 2006, he was imprisoned in some of the worst Iraqi prisons, becoming friends with ISIS leader Abu Bakr-Al Baghdadi.
By 2011, he had moved back to Syria with six men and a stipend of £40,000 to establish al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate.
He formed al-Nusra - and remained aligned with his Baghdadi until resisting an effort to merge with ISIS.
Al-Jolani's then decided to split with al-Qaeda in 2016.
He rebranded as the HTS, or the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant, in 2016 with the US designating it a terror organisation a year later and placing a £8million bounty on his head.
HTS tried to present a more moderate image and shy away from its terrorist anti-Western Jihadist roots as less extreme organisation.
The group claimed to have rooted out al-Qaeda and ISIS operatives and cells in its territory and promoted itself to the West as a viable anti-Iran partner.
He told PBS in 2021 that he had no desire to wage war against Western nations and the group established a semi-technocratic government in Idlib and the area of northwest Syria it controlled.
In a victory statement following Assad's demise, al-Sharaa said claimed Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities would be safe under HTS rule.
But since coming to power, there have been reports of massacres and enslavement in Syria.