Belgian Court Strips Citizenship from ISIS Widows, Sentences Them to Prison

Hafsa M., a 27-year-old woman from Antwerp who left for Syria in 2013, Ilhame H., aged 30 and left in the spring of 2013, and Nora M., a 26-year-old widow of a Sharia4Belgium leader, Nabil Kasmi, are undesirable in Belgium due to a decision by the Brussels criminal court. They are accused of belonging to the Islamic State (IS) organization.

The first, Hafsa M., had joined Syria in the spring of 2013 with her partner Ahmed Dihaj. According to 7sur7.be, the couple had a little boy, before the father was killed on the front. His widow then remarried Youssef Khaldi, a 36-year-old ardent militant of Sharia4Belgium. In Syria, Hafsa M. was mainly responsible for housework. She wanted to go to the front but did not have the opportunity, according to her own words during the wiretapped phone calls, the same source indicates.

As for Ilhame H., she is the wife of Brahim El Mimouni (31 years old), a member of Sharia4Belgium. The couple first joined the Mujahideen Consultative Council in Iraq, an alliance of several guerrilla movements, in the spring of 2013, then the IS, the same media specifies.

Nora M., for her part, is said to have left for Syria in September 2013, although her father only reported her disappearance in December of the same year. Like her husband, she is said to have remained in Baghouz until the last moment and refused to abandon the jihadist organization. Last March, the Belgian security services learned that she was in the Kurdish Al-Hol camp, it is specified.

For now, the court has ordered the immediate arrest of the three women, including Nora, 26, who escaped from the Kurdish prisoner camp of Al-Hol and is said to be on her way to Belgium with her children, according to recent information from the federal prosecutor’s office.