War with Isis: The grim reality of life under the Islamist group in Iraq

In part two of this special series of dispatches, Patrick Cockburn explains how the group is tightening its grip on Fallujah and encouraging people to denounce their neighbors

Sunday May 16, 2015


On the day Ibrahim fled his home city of Fallujah, crowds were gathering to witness the execution of two women who had refused to marry Islamic State (Isis) militants. A 49-year-old Sunni Arab, he says he was shocked “because I knew that those women were Sunnis from the country neighbourhood of Fallujah”.

It was the vulnerability of his two daughters, aged 21 and 23, to “temporary marriage” with Isis commanders, fighters and militants that led Ibrahim, which is not his real name, to leave Fallujah two months ago for Baghdad 40 miles away and later to seek refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan. He told The Independent on Sunday in an interview that the threat to his daughters was the culmination of friction between him and members of Isis who captured the Sunni Arab city with a population of 200,000, in January of 2014.

Ibrahim says that Isis recently amended a “temporary marriage” order, extending it to civilians in peaceful areas and not just in war zones. Isis had previously enforced the “Jihad marriage” order, also known as the “Jihad al-Nikah”, in which jihad fighters have the right to take women, including minors, as captives and marry them for a short time, which might be one day or even a few hours. The order also gives the jihadists the right to marry more than one woman.

in full: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/war-with-isis-the-grim-reality-of-life-under-the-islamist-group-in-iraq-10255422.html