The Guardian - 31.08.2019

Sat urday 31 Aug ust 2019 The Guardian •

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Islamic State

‘These women are monsters’

Sowing the seeds of a new

caliphate in camp from hell

Bethan McKernan

Al-Hawl , Syria

T

he vast scale of al-Hawl

can be seen from miles

away, on the road that

leads to the camp

from the west. The

white tents housing

the displaced women and children

of Islamic State stretch out over the

dusty Syrian landscape far beyond

the adjacent town’s outskirts, to the

foot of a distant hill.

Deep inside a section reserved for

foreigners, and beyond the control

of the camp’s overwhelmed guards,

is an area known as Jabal Baghuz,

or Baghuz Mountain, named by the

women who live there for the oasis

town on the Euphrates River where

their husbands were fi nally defeated

in March. Jabal Baghuz is now the

only place where Isis’s so-called

caliphate lives on. It is from here that

the seeds of the group’s resurgence

are being sown.

“It’s a timebomb waiting to go

off. There is no easy solution,”

said Gen Mazloum Kobani of the

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),

the western-backed, mainly

Kurdish group now responsible for

administering much of Isis’s former

territory. “Even if the foreigners are

sent home, the majority are Syrian

and Iraqi detainees and if they are

not deradicalised that will be a

problem for many years to come.”

Recent Pentagon and UN reports

say that while Isis is unlikely to

regain its former strength in Syria,

an insurgency is fast evolving. While

fi ghters sit in Kurdish prisons or slip

back into the local population in

Deir Ezzor province and Isis’s former

capital , Raqqa, thousands of families

wait for them in al-Hawl. US offi cials

describe Isis as active inside, using

the camp as an incubator for the

next generation of extremists.

Since 2016 al-Hawl has been home

to around 10,000 Iraqis and Syrians

who fl ed Isis. During the weeks-

long battle for Baghuz, however,

the camp was fl ooded with an

unexpected 64,000 new women and

children, the vast majority of which

have links to the jihadist group.

There are just 400 guards to keep

order over thousands of women,

among them vengeful individuals

intent on attacking the Kurdish

soldiers and aid workers as well as

anyone in the camp who does not

obey Isis’s strict rules or who are

suspected of spying for the SDF.

Camp offi cials said that at least

two women inside had been killed

by the most radical detainees.

Last month, an Azerbaijani

woman smothered her 14-year-

old granddaughter to death for

refusing to wear the niqab. Yazda, an

organisation representing the Yazidi

ethnic minority who were murdered

and enslaved by Isis, also reported a

Yazidi woman as having been killed

in al-Hawl.

Although none of the women

are allowed mobile phones, two

propaganda videos where children

pledge their allegiance to Isis in

front of the group’s black fl ag have

surfaced in recent weeks. Their

detention in hot, overcrowded and

unsanitary conditions has now

become a rallying cry for supporters

across Isis’s social media networks.

“As if life in this place wasn’t bad

enough these women are monsters,”

said one al-Hawl resident who asked

not to be named to avoid retribution.

“I can’t get the medicine I need for

my son when he’s sick, the toilets are

overfl owing. And then these women

will burn your tent and beat your

children just because they can.”

The camp is ringed by a fence and

monitored by the SDF and a local

police force known as the Asayish.

Despite their AK-47s, however, the

guards and the camp’s population

know who really holds the balance

of power inside.

A core of Tunisian, Somali and

Russian-speaking women in Jabal

Baghuz issue orders to the other

women. Kitchen knives distributed

by aid organisations have been used

to attack the outnumbered SDF.

Last month, one soldier died of her

wounds in hospital and two more

have been seriously injured.

Aylül, the camp’s head of security,

winced as she rolled up the sleeve of

her fatigues to reveal a huge purple-

yellow bruise covering her upper

arm. “One of them bit me ,” she said.

“The worst thing is when the women

encourage the children to throw

stones. They tell them we killed their

fathers and destroyed their homes. ”

When the women and children

were evacuated from the fi ghting

and bought to al-Hawl, any relief at

escaping US-led coalition airstrikes

and starvation was shortlived: at

least 255 children in al-Hawl have

died since January, mostly infants

suff ering from cold and malnutrition

on arrival. Anger at the conditions is

growing. The families are exposed

to extreme heat and cold in fl imsy

tents, there are traces of E coli in

the drinking water and inadequate

healthcare. There are no educational

facilities for children.

The SDF has not dared go inside

the 12,000-strong foreign section of

the camp in the last three months,

after a routine weapons search

almost triggered a full-scale riot

when thousands of its inhabitants

surged up to the camp’s front gate

and administration buildings.

One soldier’s discomfort inside

the main section for Syrians and

Iraqis was palpable. Nervously

gripping his gun, he hurried the

Guardian’s reporting team along

every few minutes. Two of his

colleagues refused to leave the

armoured pick-up truck.

Progress on repatriating citizens

is slow. Yet each day the former cubs

of the caliphate spend in al-Hawl

is another day of childhood gone,

making it harder to break the cycles

of radicalisation and deprivation.

One Trinidadian boy, now 15,

was taken to Syria by his father in

2014. In the last days of the battle of
      Baghuz, Isis forced him to fi ght and
      he was lucky to escape to al-Hawl
      alive. His father and siblings are
      dead and he now whiles away the
      days teaching himself maths from a
      battered textbook at one of al-Hawl’s
      two small orphanage buildings.
      “My mum knows I’m here. I miss
      her very much,” he said. “I keep
      asking : ‘Why can’t I go home?’ But
      nobody ever has a real answer.”

Majority of refugees in al-Hawl have links to Islamic State

Syria

al-Hawl

al-Hawl

The section of

the camp where

12,000 foreign

nationals are

housed

Syrians and

Iraqis live in the

main section

The camp is

surrounded by

a fence and

monitored by

the SDF and a

local police

force

Enclave known

as Jabal Baghuz

0.5 miles

500m

Guardian graphic. Image taken on 28 August 2019 by Sentinel-2B

▼ About 64,000

Isis women and

children who

were evacuated

from fi ghting

in Baghuz

earlier this

year now live in

the huge white-

tented al-Hawl

camp (left)

MAIN PHOTOGRAPH:

BÜLENT KILIÇ/AFP/

GETTY IMAGES

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