generalspeaking

An Exceptional Woman in Raqqa

"She would like to come back; she has asked for pardon from her family, her friends, her country."
Mother of Emilie Konig, German convert to Islam, ISIL 'terrorist'

"A Kurdish state does not exist, and French citizens cannot be judged by the Kurds."
"They [children born to ISIL women] did not ask to be born in Syria. Nor to be detained by the Kurds, and they cannot be held responsible for the choices of their parents."
Marie Dose, lawyer for French female jihadist 

"[If] there are legal institutions capable of guaranteeing a fair trial assuring their right to a defense [women arrested in Kurdish-held Syria should be] judged there."
"Whatever crime may have been committed -- even the most despicable -- French citizens abroad must have a guaranteed right to a defense. We must have confirmation of that."
French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux

Now 33 years old, Emilie Konig originally resident in a small town in Brittany, decided to convert to Islam while a teen. She later married, became the mother of two small children. She never felt quite comfortable living in France since she took to wearing a black abaya and niqab veiling her face. Since France did not seem to value her presence, she felt more comfortable leaving her two small children to travel to Syria where she became a propagandist and recruiter for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. There, she felt appreciated.

This woman is exceptional in that she became an important recruiter for ISIL, whereas other women who travelled from across Europe to Syria to join the ISIL caliphate were more content to be breeding mares for the Islamist fundamentalist movement. They too were important, raising ISIL "cubs" taught from childhood ISIL's values and indoctrinated into the militancy of its murderous ideology. Who can forget in the heights of its abysmal notoriety the photographs disseminated widely of children wielding firearms, shooting at prisoners, helping to decapitate prisoners?

This was the world-class purveyors of hatred and bloody gore that Emilie Konig exalted in her propaganda, urging Muslims to commit themselves to jihad, ISIL-style. In October when Raqqa, the erstwhile Syrian capital of Islamic State was finally taken from the barbarian Islamists, mostly through the courageous actions of the Kurdish militias, the women and children who were resident there were taken to prison camps in Syrian Kurdistan. Europe, needless to say wouldn't mind if the ground beneath Raqqa had swallowed these European jihadist females.

Many of them were indeed discovered underground in the many tunnels that Islamic State had built. It makes eminent good sense for captured felons, murderers and their enablers to stand trial in the very place where their crimes were committed. All too often compensation for murder is not Paradise but state punishment of execution. And since European countries writhe in an agony of discomfort at the very notion, they are faced with the dilemma of claiming their own to have them extradited to stand trial at  home for crimes against humanity committed elsewhere.

This photo taken on October 20, 2017 shows fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) walking down a street in Raqqa past destroyed vehicles and heavily damaged buildings after a Kurdish-led force expelled ISIL fighters from the northern Syrian city, formerly their "capital". Bulent Kilic / AFP

An estimated 4,300 people left Europe to join the battle in Syria and Iraq, according to the International Center for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague. This is not a hard-and-fast number since other agencies place that number even higher. Foreign fighters remain in Syria of whom an estimated 43 percent are women. French President Emmanual Macon stated that decisions on retrieving women and children to return from Iraq and Syria would be reached on a case-by-case judgment basis.

Mustafa Bali, speaking for the Syrian Kurdish Defense Forces stated that his leaders have urged "all countries, European or other, to extradite their women and children". Presumably that advice has been set aside in indecision; the countries involved uncertain whether they plan or wish to return their nationals to stand trial at home, where no crimes were committed by them. Kurdish journalist Arin Shekhmus on visiting three camps where Arab, Asian and European "war prisoners" were kept, said he had seen up to a100 women and children.

They should be returned to their home countries which include Russia, Kazakhstan and Indonesia,  however: "The European governments still haven't reached out to extradite their citizens", he said. They don't want their wayward and blood-stained citizens to return necessarily, and presumably remain content to have them remain under the stewardship of the Kurds. Yet should the Kurds take the initiative to rid themselves of the camps' inmates and executive their due punishment, those same European countries would rise up in irate disgust to sanctimoniously slam the Kurds for 'taking matters into their own hands'.

Both the United Nations and the United States took the unusual step of distinguishing Emilie Konig in recognition of her vital role for Islamic State, of listing her as a terrorist, subject to sanctions. On her arrival in Syria at age 27 she started to post propaganda videos and to appeal to Muslims to recognize their jihadist duty to support the Islamic State caliphate. From all accounts her valuable services were duly appreciated and recognized as heroic in nature.

Emilie König, a Frenchwoman suspected of recruiting fighters for Islamic State who appeared on US and UN blacklists, has been arrested by Kurdish forces in Syria, her mother said on Tuesday.

Labels: Controversy, Europe, Jihadists, Raqqa, Repatriation, Syria, Trial

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, January 21, 2018