My ISIS boyfriend

It was not actually Erelle who wanted to travel to Syria but “Melodie,” a 20-year-old would-be jihadist bride she created on the Internet. Erelle, 32, is a journalist with a weekly news magazine in Paris who specializes in covering the Middle East.

Two years ago, she carried out a series of interviews with teenagers in the banlieues, the poverty-stricken suburbs of Paris which have become a breeding ground for extremism, and was intrigued by how many young Muslims had been radicalized.

“They knew very little about religion. They had hardly read a book and they learnt jihad before religion,” she said. “They’d tell me, ‘you think with your head, we think with our hearts.’ They had a romantic view of radicalism. I wondered how that happened.”

Even more baffling were the “caliphettes,” young women who had grown up in a free society but were obsessed with jihadist fighters. “To them, jihadists are like Brad Pitt, only better because
Brad Pitt is not religious,” says Erelle.

She decided to join the young Muslim community online and created a fake profile on Facebook and Twitter. Little was known about the growing links between extremists and Muslim teenagers then, and even now the scale of the network is a surprise: Sultana, one of the missing British girls believed to have crossed the border to Syria, was following more than 70 extremists on Twitter and had amassed more than 11,000 followers.

Erelle’s intention was to observe exchanges online and build up a picture of how youngsters were being radicalized in France. Then came something unexpected. Melodie attracted the attention of Abou-Bilel, one of ISIS’s senior commanders in Raqqa (pictured, top). He fell in love with her, proposed marriage and invited her to join him in the caliphate.

There was one further instruction: Melodie was to pick up some treats for Bilel at duty free, including after-shave. He told her he liked Egoiste by Chanel.

“Here is something else about these fighters,” says Erelle. “They say they reject the West, that they are anti-capitalist, but they love luxury and designer labels, it’s all Nike trainers and Ray-Ban sunglasses mixed in with their military clothes. It’s another way of luring in kids, of saying, ‘I was once poor like you but look at me now.’”

truthbetold wrote:why would anybody on this forum be interested on a news item like this? what is your point?

confuzzled dude wrote:

truthbetold wrote:why would anybody on this forum be interested on a news item like this? what is your point?

I take it as you didn't read the article. My point is why are they putting her at risk by revealing most of the details pertaining to her.

truthbetold wrote:why would anybody on this forum be interested on a news item like this? what is your point?