The women of IS: Part two

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1:23Frozen in limbo for years, the residents of IS detention camps in Syria are facing a new chapter and more uncertainty. A potential homecoming that could bring freedom for some and prison for others. There are many women and children who are clearly desperate to return to their countries of origin and others who may be fighting tooth and nail to avoid getting sent back. The Syrian authorities want the situation resolved. In the face of resistance from abroad like this from the Australian Prime Minister Antony Albanese whose country recently saw an IS-inspired massacre on Bondi Beach. My mother would have said if you make your bed you lie in it.

2:06We have a very firm view that we won't be providing assistance or repatriation. Bringing home what the tabloid press calls ISIS brides is a decision many countries would rather not have to make. It's very difficult for courts in Europe to judge the difference between individuals who are victims and those who are perpetrators of some of the most serious crimes we've seen in modern times. Yet some have shown that there is a way. Until the recent repatriations in Iraq, Central Asia was the leading region globally for bringing people home. It was a model that was commended by the UN. In this episode of our series on the women of IS, we explore how countries whose citizens joined the Islamic State group view the dilemmas involved in bringing their people back.

2:56We'll try to understand their narratives through the domestic and geopolitical contexts to assess how this story could pan out.

3:09Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Crassi Ivanova-Twig, and this is the global jigsaw from BBC Monitoring, where we look at the world through the lens of its media, exploring the narratives, the propaganda and the disinformation. We were not in the territory of Ukraine. Western countries are not the international community. That era has finished.

3:41The Islamic State group's so-called caliphate was a magnet attracting tens of thousands of people from some 60 nations. The jihadist utopia it sold was full of promise and purpose. To recap, here's our top jihadist media expert, Mina Al-Lami. In 2014, when IS declared its so-called caliphate, people from all over the world joined IS for different reasons. There are personal reasons, there are religious reasons. People were motivated by the notion that once a caliphate is declared, you have a religious duty to join. There are political reasons. A lot of people were enraged by what was happening in Syria.

4:27IS really tried to invoke the early caliphates of Islam, characterized by territorial expansion, by cultural flourishing and scientific advancements. And they packaged this as an opportunity to take part in history in the making, to be part of something bigger, more significant and transformative. And I think for a lot of these women who voluntarily joined, that was part of the allure of joining this Islamic state where Islam rules their Sharia rule. IS was defying the whole world. young girls from Western Europe were a particular target for recruiters, who threw in the promise of romance. Police believe they're Shamima Begum and Amira Abbas, both 15, and 16-year-old Khadiza Sultana.

5:16Authorities think they left London that day to join ISIS. So you have this notion that you get to choose who you marry. You're not coerced. What you got wasn't the miserable life in the caliphate or that you become a housewife. you're going to cook and clean, it was a different notion that was promoted, that of you choose your warrior husband, but also you become an active part of this caliphate. But many found that the promise led them into a cage. Here's Barry Marston, another member of our jihadist media team. The vast majority of testimonies from women will talk about how they were deluded into joining the Islamic State.

5:58Firstly, I didn't join the organization. My husband forced me to come here. He died and my children and I are paying the price. We want to tell the people that we are the victims. Maybe their husbands told them that they were going to work in Turkey and the next thing they knew they came across the border. The women were taken by the men. Many men blackmailed them with taking the children with them abroad. In many cases that story is genuine, but in not all cases, and it's very, very difficult for court systems back here in Europe to judge the difference between individuals who are victims and those who are perpetrators of some of the most serious crimes we've seen in modern times.

6:48This is at the heart of the dilemma faced by the nations whose citizens have been trapped in the Syrian desert camps. How to distinguish perpetrator from victim and what to do with them. The UN emphasises that countries have a duty to assist their nationals abroad and protect them from harm. From 2021 onwards, there was this huge effort to try and depopulate these camps. This process was very much led by the United States. And that's actually a remarkable piece of policy continuity from the Biden administration through to the Trump administration, putting the pressure on countries around the world to get people back to their countries.

7:30Central Asia persistently make up some of their largest numbers. And also when you look at repatriation, it's in the hundreds for each of these Central Asian republics. 47 citizens of Kazakhstan, including 30 children, evacuated from Syria. And that's a bit of a contrast with European governments, because you notice the reticence coming from European governments when it comes to repatriating their nationals. There's a very different experience. You're absolutely right. With France, we're talking about hundreds that have been repatriated. For other European countries, we tend to see a little bit of cherry picking because there's a greater reluctance as these cases become perhaps politically problematic or individuals who may have been more closely involved with the activities of IS.

8:21The numbers of people across the board who've been repatriated back to all European states over the last year or so has been very small. We're talking about ones and twos a lot of the time. They will be taken back and put through either the childcare system or the remand system. It will be investigated whether they had any sort of technically criminal background during their time in the Islamic State system. But it's incredibly difficult. What's the situation with Britain? Britain is often characterised as an outlier. It has become a real political football in the UK in the way that it has been politicised in the media, which does seem to have made this process a lot more difficult for the UK.

9:08There's the famous case of Shamima Begum and the British teenagers who slipped out of their homes with a one-way ticket to the caliphate. Years later, Shamima spoke to the BBC about her regret. If I go to court and a judge says that I have to go to prison for a certain amount of time for this, then yes, I will go. And you understand that that group committed acts like genocide? Yeah, I do understand that. Ashamed of myself for being so stupid, for falling for something like this.

9:42Just a lot of regret. The UK's Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled that while there was a credible suspicion that she was a victim of trafficking and sexual exploitation, that did not stand in the way of stripping her of British citizenship, as she had become a threat, according to the UK government of the day. Her case is currently being scrutinised by the European Court of Human Rights. You could make the case that the way this has been dealt with on occasions has more to do with tabloid pressure than it necessarily does have to do with the facts. Many of the children we are dealing with were minors in the period we're also talking about.

10:24Is it lack of confidence in the justice system or is it fear of the electorate? Certainly the way we've seen this portrayed in recent years, you could make both cases. But the way that this has been politicised has made it very, very difficult for British and Western politicians to make those brave decisions. Decisions that are many years overdue. Since 2019, the US has spent over$1 billion on supporting the STF, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, including salaries for those guarding the IS detention centres. But that has dried up. The cut in US funding in early 2025 has had a very large impact.

11:09Many NGOs were involved in processing individuals and assessing cases and trying to identify who could be brought back. There are many women and children who are clearly desperate to return to their countries of origin, others not so, because they clearly believed that they were going to be prosecuted or that they would be separated from their children. From Taco Night in Tulum to Sushi in Tokyo, make every bite rewarding with gold from Amex. Wherever you dine, four times the membership rewards points at restaurants worldwide are piling up. Learn more at americanexpress.com slash explore-gold.

11:47Terms and points cap apply. This message comes from Schwab. At Schwab, how you invest is your choice, not theirs. That's why when it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices. You can invest and trade on your own, plus get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs. With award-winning service, low costs and transparent advice, you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab. Visit schwab.com to learn more. You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service. Yet some countries have shown that there is a way. The approach by Central Asian governments has proven to be a relative success.

12:31To understand how their narratives evolved, let's get some background with the help of Bryn Windsor from our Russia team. Central Asia is a very big region where Islam has been on the rise for decades. I think 90 % of citizens of Central Asia identify as Muslims. There was decades of Soviet-enforced atheism. and after the fall of the Soviet Union, Islam became very much an instrument of identity building and that's very visible on the streets of Central Asia. If you go to a bazaar in Samarkand or in Bukhara nowadays, you'll often see women in Islamic headdress, for example. A decade or even 20 years ago, you wouldn't see that at all.

13:13Governments have remained extremely nervous about what they see as non-state sanctioned versions of Islam. Of course, the region borders Afghanistan. There was a history of Islamic violence in the region. So there's a lot of state anxiety and Central Asian governments, by definition, they're extremely security conscious. There's a strong Soviet legacy. And so when they see expressions of Islam that extend beyond their influence, they see it as a threat. How many people from the region travel to Syria? It's widely reported that around 5 ,000 Central Asian nationals went and joined Islamic State.

13:52Most of them came from Uzbekistan. That makes sense because it has the largest population in the region. There was a disproportionately high number of Tajiks. Central Asian states are jittery about an Islamic revival and the threat it could pose to those in power. So they've sought to put it in a straitjacket. There's often restrictions on religious education, bans on studying Islam abroad. There's actually a ban on the niqab, that's the full face veil, in Kazakhstan, in Uzbekistan, in Tajikistan, in Kyrgyzstan. It's understood to be a de facto ban in Turkmenistan as well. But again, it's a country where there's very little public information.

14:30Tajikistan probably has the most stringent restrictions. People with long beards, with various Islamic headdresses, they'll not be able to get access to public office.

14:44The Central Asian governments frame this as a way of looking after national identity, but really it's often seen as a national security measure. But limits on freedom designed to enforce compliance often have the opposite effect. And this has been the case here too. People who are more attracted by conservative forms of the faith, they feel stigmatised. And these are the grievances that extremist groups like IS capitalise on. And so IS's local branch, IS Hadasan province, increased their propaganda output. They now produce materials in Tajik and Uzbek language. And often these materials, they're not even that focused on the global jihadi principles.

15:29Often they're rooted in domestic issues, corruption and nepotism and so on. And it was really often these disaffections locally, which led a lot of Central Asians to join the Islamic State. As Bryn mentioned, one country that stands out as a major contributor of fighters is Tajikistan. And there are reasons why Tajiks seem to have been more susceptible to jihadist recruiters. Tajikistan is the poorest country in the region. It doesn't have the oil and gas of Kazakhstan. It doesn't have the gold mines of Uzbekistan. And it means that about a quarter of the male working age population. They're migrants, mostly in Russia, but also in Turkey, and often work menial jobs, live in the segregated accommodation, and they face daily stigmatism, daily xenophobia.

16:17And this social marginalisation, again, is capitalised on by extremist groups. They offer, at least in their propaganda, an alternative path. An estimated 2 ,000 Tajiks left to become fighters of the so-called caliphate. When these people were leaving to join Islamic State, they were often framed as traitors, as foreign fighters, as terrorists. When Islamic State fell in 2019 and the Central Asian governments took the decision to start repatriating some of these people, the narrative took a full U-turn and the returnees, they were presented often as victims, as people vulnerable in need of care.

16:57and the state media would often present the decision to repatriate people as a patriotic and humanitarian duty to protect our nationals living in these Syrian camps.

17:12The programmes that were shown all across state media was focused on women presented as vulnerable victims of the Islamic State, which in many cases they were.

17:26These were women who had been forced to leave or somehow tricked into leaving by their husbands. They were there forced to marry several times. Often many of them gave birth. The Islamic State group promised its young female recruits that they can marry whoever they want. What happened was the opposite. Foreign women were not allowed to live in IS-held areas unless they were married. They had to stay in guest houses for widows until a suitable marriage could be arranged and forced marriages were commonplace. The repatriation programme really started with Kazakhstan in 2019 when they started a programme called Operation Jusan.

18:10It means wormwood, which is this shrub which is endemic to the Kazakh steppe. And in Kazakh culture, it symbolises home and homeliness and repatriated, according to state statistics, about 750 citizens, mostly women and children. First, security officials were sent to the camps in Syria to identify Kazakh women and children. Then they were repatriated and sent to these rehabilitation centres, where they were held for several weeks.

18:46Kyrgyzstan's repatriation approach may have been grounded in humanitarian reasons, but it also served as a message to the world. Everyone is just a good citizen of Kyrgyzstan. And of course, our kind of Islam is not radical. We are a small nation that needs to take care of each other, even of those who commit mistakes. The decision by the Kyrgyz government to start repatriating people was in many ways also to signal to the world that Kyrgyzstan remains a humanitarian-focused state and that it has these liberal values. And so in global terms, the Central Asian repatriation program, frankly, it was a real success.

19:28About 5 ,000 Central Asians went to fight for IS and about 2 ,200 were repatriated. And until the recent repatriations in Iraq, for example, Central Asia was actually the leading region globally for bringing people home. It was a model that was commended by the UN. You are listening to The Global Jigsaw from BBC Monitoring. Let's move north to the biggest country on earth that was also a substantial source of wannabe citizens of the so-called Islamic State Caliphate. Claire Denning is a BBC monitoring expert on both Russia and the Middle East. According to the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, around 1 ,000 Russian women, 1 ,000 Russian miners and upwards of 5 ,000 Russian men ended up joining ISIS or living under IS-controlled territory.

20:25And most of them came from the North Caucasus, which is a mountainous region in the southwest of Russia, and it is nestled between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. And these are Muslim-majority republics, mainly Chechnya and Dagestan, but there was also the republics of Ingushetia and Kavadino-Balkaria that also saw some nationals leaving. And so this region of Russia is really known for its history of separatism and having a quite complicated relationship with the Russian state. In 2017, actually, Russian became the third most spoken language in IS. Just like in Central Asia, the Islamic State group exploited grievances with the central rule to attract followers.

21:15Their message, I think, tapped into local histories of having to fight against the Russian state. So there were many armed militants fighting for independence from Russia in Chechnya, in Dagestan, in other areas of the North Caucasus. And they saw the war in Syria as a potential extension of the war at home. Russia was allied with Bashar al-Assad, so they could sometimes justify going to fight in Syria as part of IS as a continuation of their fight against Moscow. There was an interesting part of the history of Chechen separatism where you had a movement that began with the First Chechen War as a national independence movement that was expressed in secular language.

22:12And you saw this movement transition into a kind of trans-regional Salafi jihadist insurgency. which sought similar goals, but that expressed them in very different language. That paralleled the language of IS and of other transnational Salafi jihadist movements. Gulf countries were putting money into spreading Salafi Islam, and the region itself was historically Sufi, so a very different sect of Islam. You had the sudden sort of injection of a Salafi ideology, and that ideology also came from Chechens going abroad but also foreign fighters coming in to fight alongside Chechens in the war. Another really big factor is that the counterinsurgency efforts were so, so brutal and the wars were so violent and I think that this also gave some ammunition to IS and led to a receptivity among local people.

23:19When the so-called IS caliphate started to disintegrate, like many other countries, Russia too had to figure out what to do with its nationals stranded in Syria. It started with a RT documentary that is a Russia's state television channel, and it showed the children of Russian IS-linked women. A clip from the documentary was reshared by Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya, and he appeared to have a lot of empathy for these children and also for the women. And so he spearheaded this effort by the Russian state to begin repatriating women. When Ramzan Kadyrov announced this initiative, he appeared to have the support of the central government and President Vladimir Putin came out and sort of defended the children as innocent in all of the mess that had happened.

24:20But he didn't speak specifically about the women. And later on, you had the FSB head, Bortnikov, who said that Russian women who were linked with IS posed a threat to the Russian state if we return them. They still continued the repatriations, but they were mainly of children.

24:42Occasionally you would have women, but they would usually go straight to jail or await imprisonment. Ramzan Kadyrov seems to be a lone voice, welcoming back the IS women and children. Ramzan Kadyrov saw himself as a humanitarian actor, saving and rescuing children, innocent victims of IS.

25:08But several other leaders of neighbouring republics disagreed with Kadyrov. The head of Ingushetia, Yunus Bekhovkov, said in an interview that he saw these women not as little angels and present them more as violent terrorists. In recent years, Russia has found itself on the receiving end of the wrath of the Islamic State group. IS said four of its members, all from Tajikistan, carried out an attack on a Moscow concert hall in 2024, which killed 145 people. The attack created further animosity towards IS. The way that Russians might perceive IS-linked women is also potentially tied to the attacks that have taken place inside Russia that have been orchestrated by IS or IS-linked people.

26:10The Croker City Hall attack also led to maybe the erosion of any sympathy that could have been there previously. Russia's repatriation efforts have been a mixed bag and there are thought to be many more Russians who are still in Syria awaiting their fate. Relatives have identified at least 1 ,779 Russian women and children who are still in Syria and Iraq and want to be returned to Russia, but their requests are pending. It is brilliant that around 500 children who otherwise would have been in these camps and had to suffer there for no reason of their own are being reintegrated into their homelands.

26:57I don't think women were really the lucky ones in this situation. The majority of the camp detainees came from Iraq, and tens of thousands of those have already been repatriated. Baghdad's security dilemma with regards to bringing those individuals home is even more complex. Over to Mohamed Al-Jumayli from our Middle East team. At the camp's height, there were 70 ,000 residents of Al-Hol and around 40 ,000 of whom were Iraqis, the largest contingency within the camp. The repatriation really started in earnest in 2021. In 2025, there's been a big drive from the US as well as the Iraqi government.