“Farther on to where?”
“Al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham,” he replied. “Daesh.”
He elaborated for Sadiq: “They’re the ones who recruit women. Not us.”
Daesh is used as the derogatory name for the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, Greater Syria—an area also comprising parts of Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, and Turkey. ISIS and ISIL are different names for the same organization, as “al-sham” is often translated as the Levant.
Daesh and al-Nusra, having both arisen from the same source—al-Qaida—were theologically similar. When the war in Syria began, the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) dispatched a group into the country to start the offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra. Then ISI itself entered Syria. After asserting its independence, the group was expelled from al-Qaida and, under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, renamed itself ISIS. They had created al-Nusra and now they demanded the group’s reincorporation. Jabhat al-Nusra refused. They preferred to remain with al-Qaida.
The recruitment of women was one bone of contention. Al-Qaida’s men would welcome women in Syria, but only when the war was over and the true caliphate established. ISIS wanted them to come right away.
Abu Islam showed the visitors to the door, nodding all the while, promising, “We’ll keep an eye out.”
Their next port of call was Ahrar al-Sham, an Islamist militia that was more moderate than al-Nusra and had no connections to al-Qaida. Ahrar al-Sham also wanted an Islamic state but rejected global jihad and a caliphate beyond Syria’s borders. Their sole aim was sharia in Syria.
The leaders of the organization had spent years in Sednaya prison being subjected to brutal torture. When Assad opened the gates, the prison comrades formed a militia. They set themselves apart from more hard-core Salafists by promising to protect religious minorities and cooperate with secular forces. They were labeled closet pragmatists.
“Do you have any inkling where the girls might be?” the commander, Abu Utham al-Atar, asked.
“Only that they’re in Syria, I don’t know where,” Sadiq replied. “They’ve likely passed through this area. Someone may have kidnapped them.”
“A father who comes to a war zone to get his daughters. Respect,” the commander said, and promised to keep a lookout.
Sadiq showed him the worn photocopy of their passport pictures. But the photos were probably of little use; the girls were likely now wearing niqabs.
The headquarters of the Free Syrian Army was just a few minutes’ drive away, at the local police station. The force, having initially wrested control of the town from Assad, was losing territory. The FSA had support from both the United States and Saudi Arabia, but the Assad regime, with its heavy artillery and air force, and the Islamists, with their superior weaponry and greater number of vehicles, had both intensified their attacks on the group. Many young fighters, persuaded by the Islamists’ aggressive propaganda or tempted by the resources available, had defected from the secular side to their ranks. In addition, the FSA was weakened by internal divisions. The army had also been infiltrated by bands looting in their name, and popular support was waning. This stood in contrast to Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, which were winning over the local population with acts of charity.
The smell of cigarettes hit Sadiq as he entered their headquarters. Finally he could light up. Osman took one too. The atmosphere at the FSA was otherwise gloomy. They had been attacked the previous night, and Sadiq and Osman now had to wait for the brigade leader to finish a meeting. After they’d waited long enough to smoke several more cigarettes, a tall, thin man in his sixties with a walrus mustache approached them.
“Sad, very sad,” Abu Alush said, upon hearing Sadiq’s story. The colonel had been among the first to desert Assad’s army.
“There are a lot of bad things happening that are out of our hands, but I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”
“They’re almost certainly being held hostage,” Sadiq said. “Most likely by a criminal gang.”
The colonel nodded. “Yes, yes, no doubt, but you have to leave now.”
* * *
There was one group left: the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Their headquarters was in a villa once owned by an Assad general, situated behind high walls and a large gate. The building was surrounded by a desiccated garden in which only a few almond trees had survived untended. Inside, there was a homey smell—a couple of young boys were preparing dinner, lentil soup with black beans and bread.
They were welcomed by a tall emir, Abu Saad al-Tunisi, the last part of his name indicating his country of origin. Sadiq put great effort into choosing the right words. By this stage he had fashioned a good story, emphasizing the parts that had made an impression on his previous listeners, leaving out the weaker points. He focused on his daughters being kidnapped and held against their will.
Abu Saad offered food, but no promises. Trays were brought in. Sadiq could hear the sound of several others eating in the adjacent room. The sounds of men in high spirits, their weapons put down but not, as he remembered from his time as a soldier, far out of reach. He recalled how you held your gun close, like a girlfriend, if you became unsure, checked it was loaded, that the safety catch was not on. Putting the safety off took three seconds, but in that time you could be dead.
Abu Islam, the pear-shaped Islamist they had met at the Jabhat al-Nusra base, was the one who had arranged for them to meet with ISIS. He now entered the room and greeted them briefly before leaving the villa. Even though the two jihadist armies were able to share a meal and enter into tactical alliances prior to a battle, their relationship was tense. The power struggle between their leaders was bitter and uncompromising; instead of pointing their weapons in the same direction—against the Syrian army—the jihadist groups had been fighting that summer for control of Syria’s northern areas.
Green headbands were replaced with
