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Syrian girls forced to marry ISIS fighters

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham is forcing Syrian girls to marry its foreign fighters.
Veiled women sit as they chat in a garden in the northern province of Raqqa March 31, 2014. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has imposed sweeping restrictions on personal freedoms in the northern province of Raqqa. Among the restrictions, Women must wear the niqab, or full face veil, in public or face unspecified punishments "in accordance with sharia", or Islamic law. REUTERS/Stringer   (SYRIA - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT RELIGION SOCIETY) - RTR3JCO4

ISTANBUL — Following its establishment in Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which has spread out over Raqqa, northern Aleppo and some of the border areas, has begun to attract young jihadists from around the world. The fighters have expropriated houses, land and cars to have the desired life in the "Islamic state." They have also married Syrian girls for various reasons.

Some parents are ready to give up everything they have to be close to the ISIS emirs, achieve material gains and have prestige and power. They offer their daughters to foreign fighters without asking the bride-to-be, according to prominent Raqqa activist Omar al-Huwaidi. Some girls — such as Fatima Abdulla al-Abou, 22, a university student from the al-Ojeil tribe in Salhabiya in Raqqa's countryside — categorically reject the practice. When her father tried to force her to marry a Tunisian immigrant on Feb. 2, she chose to die than to live with him. She committed suicide by poison, ending her life as a student who had worked halfway toward her degree.

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