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The Documentary Podcast

The Mystery of Russia’s Lost Jihadi Brides

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.32.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 April 2018

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Thousands of young Russian Muslim men were lured to join so-called Islamic State - taking their wives and children with them. But since the "caliphate" fell last year, those families have vanished - and grandmothers back in Russia are desperate for news. The Kremlin wants to bring the children home. It says they've committed no crimes. But finding them and their mothers is hugely difficult. Iraqi authorities say they're holding many IS families - but they won't name them. Gradually though, dramatic scraps of information are emerging - a scribbled note from a prison, whispered phone messages, photos and videos on social media. For months, Tim Whewell has been talking to the grandmothers as they've gathered such clues - and now he travels to Iraq in search of more information, tracing the route the fighters and their families took when they were defeated - and trying to solve the mystery of what happened to them. What was the fate of the men after they surrendered at a remote village school? And what of the reports that many of the women and children were subsequently abducted by a militia? As the story unfolds, Tim confronts a powerful Shia warlord. Will the jihadis' children be released? What kind of justice will their mothers face? And what will the grandmothers - convinced of their daughters' innocence - do to try to get them back?

Presenter Tim Whewell Producers Nick Sturdee & Mike Gallagher

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to assignment on the BBC World Service.

0:02.8

I'm Tim Hewell.

0:03.8

They get out straight away.

0:09.8

They get out straight away.

0:12.4

Get hold of the consulate or whoever whoever as quick as you can.

0:16.0

Say we know they've got out.

0:19.0

Talafah, Northern Iraq, August 28th last year. The long battle to defeat the Islamic State Group is almost

0:26.4

over. Its fighters are facing death. They know the games up for them, but they're desperate to get their families to safety.

0:37.0

I don't know who to surrender to.

0:39.0

I would send them out, but there is a shooting going on. These are the last messages of a tall young man with an unkempt beard and a weak eye,

0:49.0

messages to his mother far away in Russia.

0:52.0

You can hear his wife crying behind him. It's a blazing

0:58.0

hot Iraqi summer. Bombs are falling all around them. The caliphate that Nadaifendiev, travelled a thousand miles to

1:06.3

build is being blown to smithereens. Who now is going to take pity even on its

1:12.4

women and children.

1:14.0

I would hand them over, even to the Kurds, but you can't hand anyone over to those animals.

1:22.0

They've got no honor or conscience. They just rape women straight away.

1:27.0

He's from an organisation that itself has raped and murdered without mercy, so he can only expect

1:36.8

pay back in kind from his now triumphant enemies.

1:40.8

For advice and comfort, he turns now in what may be his last hours to the mother he

1:46.1

abandoned years ago.

1:47.6

He said to me, if we can't get them out today, we'll have to break through.

...

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