Wife of ISIS leader reveals organization's secrets: Russian education and freedom at a high cost

In her first media appearance, Umm Khadija from Chechnya, the wife of Abdullah Maki al-Rafai, known as "Abu Khadija," the second man in the ISIS organization in Syria and Iraq, revealed shocking details about her life inside the terrorist organization in a TV interview. Umm Khadija, who joined the organization under the direct influence of her husband, stated that her life gradually changed after marriage, confirming that he convinced her that the concepts of halal and haram were "flexible" in the organization's ideology. She mentioned that she did not know how to read the Quran initially, and Russian teachers within ISIS supervised their education, with penalties imposed on those who missed classes. She explained that women within ISIS were divided according to their intentions, indicating that foreigners were the most expensive compared to Arabs, and she paid $18,000 to obtain her freedom. She also stated that most of those willing to carry out suicide operations were of European nationalities, and she was not initially aware of the details of "enslavement" within ISIS, only learning about it in 2019 through the testimonies of some women visitors to the compounds where they lived. She heard accounts from those women about the atrocities suffered by captives, watched videos about the fate of Yazidi women, which deeply affected her, imagining herself in their place, considering what happened to them inhumane and unbearable, saying, "If I were in their place, I wouldn't bear it for a single moment." She recounted how her husband constantly wore explosive belts in anticipation of an American attack, and once insisted that she wear one during a chase by an American plane, which she refused. She survived several airstrikes and bombings in the Anbar desert, where she lived in hideouts and compounds. Regarding her husband's death, she said it came as a surprise, as she was informed without details or seeing the body. Al-Rafai was killed last March in a precise airstrike carried out by US forces in coordination with Iraqi security, described at the time as "one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world." This unique testimony from inside the ISIS stronghold reveals a dark side of the reality experienced by women in the organization, shedding light on the network of teachers, punishments, and the secretive lives of the most dangerous militants in the region.