By Michael Ashcraft –
It took only six weeks to radicalize Tareena Shakil the last time there were disturbances in Gaza in 2014.
After chatting with a “groomer” on Facebook, the British-born half Pakistani carted off to Syria to join ISIS with her one-year-old son, a rash move that ultimately put her in prison for two years.
“The grooming process took like six weeks,” Tareena says on a Jordan Harbinger Show video. “It wasn’t long at all.”
Tareena Shakil says she was vulnerable to propaganda because of the troubles in her life. Her husband, who beat her and drank excessively, had abandoned her for Yemen. When the 2014 Gaza War broke out, Tareena first became aware of the political horizon via a neighbor.
Tareena, whose dad was only nominally Muslim and whose mother was white, grew up more influenced by the Kardashians than by radical Islam. Her husband had forbidden her to be on social media or even to go out with her friends.
So she was pretty much ignorant about geopolitics. But when her husband left for Yemen, she was free to go online and learn about the world. When she researched Gaza, posts in Facebook popped up of the black balaclava-clad Islamists of ISIS.
She started chatting with one. He began to write to her about being a good Muslim and the need to live in a country governed by Sharia law.
“In England, you’re levitating over the fire of hell,” he said. “If you don’t come to live here, you’ll go to hell.”
Tareena thought this man, a handsome Portuguese footballer convert to Islam, was a friend. She didn’t find out until later that he was a recruiter, or groomer, for ISIS and had convinced hundreds of girls to go to Syria and join ISIS.
Tareena says she was young and impressionable. On the one hand, she was mad at her husband, who bragged he had a new wife in Yemen. On the other hand, she wasn’t sure what it meant to be a good Muslim.
She booked a holiday in Turkey with the tentative plan to cross the border illegally. She had some sort of notion that she was going to the Islamic Shangri-La. It turned out to be the hell she supposedly wanted to escape.
The bombs fell more and more frequently, terrifying her. She had no freedom. She was a prisoner. Herself influenced by propaganda, Tareena was utilized for propaganda. They published a picture of her and her son in ISIS black garb with an AK47.
Tareena was held in Raqqa at the former mayor’s mansion under the supervision of a Saudi girl, a kind of a Mother Superior. The purpose of holding all the girls there was to marry them off to ISIS fighters. Tareena interviewed with an American ISIS fighter but rejected him.
She wound up staying the longest. All the other girls got married off. With her “seniority,” Mother Superior began to trust her and sent her to buy a code for Internet service at the store. By chance, she met at the park a Caribbean woman she knew from her entry into ISIS-held territory. The Caribbean woman confided she wanted to escape.
The next time Tareena was sent to buy Internet code, she took refuge at the house of the Caribbean woman. From there, she went to another internet store and struck up a conversation with a Syrian who spoke perfect English and seemed trustworthy. He gave her advice on how to travel on her own – by bus. But, he warned, she needed the paperwork.
When she went the next day to take the bus, she was refused because she didn’t have the paperwork. She was told to talk to two ISIS soldiers. They refused to allow her to travel.
It was risky, but Tareena decided to press them. They would be searching for her to kill her soon on behalf of the house where she was staying.
Tareena remembered her entry into ISIS territory was via Bab Limun because it was a strange name (the Door of Lemon). She also remembered that fighters were receiving training there.
“I need to see my husband,” she pleaded with the ISIS soldiers. “He’s training at Bab Limun. I haven’t seen him in eight weeks. I haven’t heard from him. Is he dead or alive? I need to go.”
She was getting hysterical. The soldiers were startled. “Just get on the bus,” one of the soldiers relented. These were the miracles that aided her in her flight.
Upon arrival in the UK, Tareena was arrested, tried and convicted to six years. She was released after two. Half her family is Christian. It is not known if she herself has become Christian.
Of late, she has been trying to become a social media influencer and fashionista.
Her harrowing story is a cautionary tale about the dangers of taking a deep dive into the hype and propaganda demonizing Israel and idolizing terrorists.
It all started with concern for the Palestinians.
To learn more about a personal relationship with Jesus, click here.
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About this writer: Michael Ashcraft pastors a church in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.
