Part 4 (Final)
Written by: Osama Humam
In the previous segment, we provided information about an ISIS member named Abu Qatada, a German national, and shared some of his insights regarding ISIS. The journalist and author Jürgen Todenhöfer, during his interactions with Abu Qatada, decided to travel to Syria to witness the conditions of ISIS firsthand.
Todenhöfer received a security guarantee from ISIS’s leadership, enabling him to travel freely from Turkey into areas under their control. Upon arrival, he joined Abu Qatada and several other members for a ten-day trip, aiming to prepare uncensored reports from the region.
During the trip, Todenhöfer encountered several ISIS members who issued severe warnings, threatened his life, and restricted his movements. He was not permitted to roam freely without their supervision. Furthermore, all the photographs and interviews he captured were reviewed, and some of the content—including images and an interview—was deleted. These were the materials that exposed the grim realities of ISIS.
Abu Qatada, who holds Takfiri beliefs, held a negative perception of the Taliban. He not only made false allegations about Mullah Muhammad Omar Mujahid but also accused him of deviating from Islamic principles. Such statements align with the ideology of ISIS extremists, who categorize their battles as jihad and their movement as Islamic, dismissing all other legitimate Islamic endeavors. This underscores the extreme nature of their sedition, in which they perceive themselves as exclusively righteous.
ISIS extremists excommunicate Muslims outside their ranks or ideology, labeling them as apostates and condemning them to death. They view those who defect from the group as apostates as well. Abu Qatada maintains the belief that all former ISIS members who left the group are apostates and, unless they repent, are to be executed.
ISIS also enlists young boys as fighters, lacking the maturity to discern right from wrong. On the fourth day of the journey, Todenhöfer traveled to Mosul with Abu Qatada and his companions. Along the way, Abu Lot, an ISIS-affiliated journalist, recounted tales of battles and ISIS fighters. He mentioned a 16-year-old German fighter who joined ISIS and perished in a clash against the Free Syrian Army. Remarkably, the young fighter was still attending school at the time of his demise.
This young fighter represents just one example of the child soldiers within ISIS ranks. The presence of such young combatants was widespread in the militia forces in Syria.
Abu Lot also provided insights about other ISIS members. He mentioned a German fighter named Burak, who had once been part of Germany’s national youth football team, and an American fighter from Texas whose father served in the U.S. military. Furthermore, he stated that even some Arab Israelis with Israeli passports were also fighting for ISIS.
While discussing the capture of Mosul, Abu Lot disclosed that the operation had been meticulously planned. He recounted, “We executed numerous suicide attacks in Mosul, instilling a sense of unease in the population. We even dispatched individuals to Quran recitation gatherings as suicide bombers,” he revealed.
Todenhöfer’s ten-day journey, which began on December 6, 2014, is chronicled in a book. The key revelations about the reality of ISIS’s fitna were summarized here in four parts. In truth, ISIS is far more horrifying and corrupt than can be encapsulated in books—it defies full description.
