{"id":47993,"date":"2021-02-21T07:39:51","date_gmt":"2021-02-21T07:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=165021"},"modified":"2021-02-21T07:39:51","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T07:39:51","slug":"kazakh-widow-shares-horror-stories-about-life-under-islamic-state-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/21\/kazakh-widow-shares-horror-stories-about-life-under-islamic-state-in-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"Kazakh Widow Shares Horror Stories About Life Under Islamic State In Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"
QARAGHANDY, Kazakhstan — Sabinella Ayazbaeva has her hands full with her five young children, psychology courses at a university, and a part-time job at a youth center in her hometown in central Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n
But she makes time to take part in the state-backed, anti-extremism campaign to warn young people against the dangers of terrorist groups that use religion to recruit new members online.<\/p>\n
A widow of an Islamic State (IS) fighter, Ayazbaeva is one of around 600 Kazakh citizens the government in Nur-Sultan repatriated from Syrian refugee camps in 2019.<\/p>\n
Ayazbaeva, 31, spent five years in Syria, where she says she witnessed brutal killings and \u201cterrible injustices\u201d committed by IS, while living in constant fear of deadly air strikes.<\/p>\n
In media interviews, speeches, and meetings, Ayazbaeva talks about the horrors of life under the IS and her disillusionment, hoping her words will stop others from \u201cmaking the mistakes\u201d she and her husband made in 2014.<\/p>\n
Describing her life before Islamic State, Ayazbaeva says that she and her husband had a \u201chappy marriage, successful business, and a private apartment\u201d in Qaraghandy.<\/p>\n
Both were practicing Muslims who attended a local mosque and led a quiet life. That is, until her husband made friends with \u201cuntraditional\u201d Islamic groups online, she recalls.<\/p>\n
In 2014, he convinced Ayazbaeva that they should move to Syria to live and raise their children in an Islamic state.<\/p>\n
The couple took their three children — aged between 1 and 6 years — and left Kazakhstan, telling their relatives they were going on \u201ca family vacation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within weeks, the young family arrived in Raqqa — the main stronghold of the self-styled caliphate — where reality struck the couple almost immediately.<\/p>\n
Her husband was made a fighter and wouldn\u2019t come home for days. There were near-daily air strikes that forced her and others to hide in the basement of the building she lived in, thinking, \u201cIs it my turn to get killed?\u201d<\/p>\n