A FORMER former Islamic State member has been talking to YourMiddleEast:

In this interview “Omer” explains how he left his hometown in Iraqi Kurdistan to join the Syrian opposition and eventually became an IS member, what he witnessed and the reasons for which he risked his life to exit the extremist Islamic organisation.

Why and how did you join the Islamic State (IS) in Syria?

Two friends and I decided to leave Iraqi Kurdistan to join the Syrian opposition and its fight against the regime. In October 2013 we got contacts from several people close to the Kurdistan Islamic Group (Komal) in my hometown, Halabja. We were told that the contacts were members of the Free Syria Army (FSA). We met the contacts in Turkey and they took us to a hotel for few days. Afterward, they took us to a training camp on the Turkey-Syria border and we found ourselves at an ISIS (or IS) camp instead of FSA.

But how is it possible that you weren’t aware your contacts were IS jihadists?

Well, we spoke with them in standard Arabic but they did not mention anything about IS until we were at the training camp. They talked against the regime as a machinery killing its own Muslim people and we had already heard that from FSA on TV. Moreover, they had no beards, dressed in modern clothes and even took us to a hotel in the Turkish city of Kilis. We therefore assumed that they were FSA not IS, as did many others who came to Turkey to join the Syrian opposition but joined us at the IS camp.

Is it true that IS trains new recruits for beheadings on dead bodies at the camps?

Not true for the camp I was at, where beheading training was practiced with chickens and other animals….

…we started to think of ourselves as fighters taking this brotherhood and luxury to Syria and we were told that we had secured a place in heaven too, that was very comforting…

What about the promise of virgin angles in heaven, is there any truths to this?

Yes, of course. We were told that as martyrs we would have 72 eternal virgins in heaven and we can save dozens of our close relatives from hell too.

So, IS promises its’ recruits 72 virgin angels and you are saying this is not “anti-Islamic propaganda” as some people may otherwise claim?

…We were told all non-Muslim women prisoners will be our wives and God wills it.

In Islamic holy war you cannot kill enemy women and children under any circumstances, they can only be taken as prisoners. It is permissible to have sexual intercourse with the captive women even if jihadists are married.

…there are Muslim women who willingly offer their bodies for IS jihadists and this is called “Sex for Jihad” and they too will be compensated in heaven according to IS.

…

I saw many foreign recruits who were put in the suicide squads not because they were “great and God wanted it” as IS commanders praised them in front of us, but basically because they were useless for IS, they spoke no Arabic, they weren’t good fighters and had no professional skills. They were brainwashed into the “women in heaven” and those they could rape on earth before they eventually killed themselves.

So IS jihadists could just take women prisoners and sleep with them against their will, which the world considers rape?

…This happened to Christian women in Al-Raqqa after their husbands were publically beheaded and I witnessed it. Now it is happening to Kurdish Yezidi women of Sinjar in Iraqi Kurdistan…

I saw six jihadists demanding that a Christian women and her daughter become their wives. The daughter was about 12-13-years-old. I told the jihadists forcing women is forbidden in Islam and children can’t be touched under any circumstances. They loaded their guns in my face and told me to leave. I immediately left to the local court that was based in a small house, but the judge was worse, he said I was wrong because 13-year-old girl is not considered a child, essentially because prophet Muhammad married his wife, Aisha, when she was only 9 years old. He accused me of having poor faith in the practices of prophet Muhammad for which I could have been detained and possibly punished with tough sentences, but my field commander soon arrived and saved me.