A New York woman whose father took her to Syria when she was a teenager and arranged her marriage to an Islamic State fighter was convicted Tuesday of receiving weapons training from the militant group.
Prosecutors said Halima Salman, a U.S. citizen, pledged her loyalty to the extremist group and willingly participated in its activities. Jurors saw a video of her holding an assault rifle, a photo of her with the group’s flag and affectionate text messages she sent to her husband.
“With today’s verdict, Salman is held accountable for joining forces with a terrorist organization,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said in a statement. “IS has ravaged Syria and wreaked havoc across the world; our office will continue to prosecute those who supported his murderous reign. »
The defense sought to portray Salman, now 27, as a teenager unwittingly trapped in the Syrian civil war, first by her father, then by an extremist husband whose orders she had to follow.
“You try to leave, it’s death,” Salmane testified. She said she refused to “get married” at the age of 18 and repeatedly tried to divorce him.
Salman’s mother is American and her family traveled from the United States to Syria when she was young.
Salman, his mother and even his lawyers cried after hearing the verdict. Still in tears, Salman and his mother then hugged each other over the railing between the public and the courtroom.
The jurors, who began deliberating Thursday, indicated several times Monday that they had difficulty reaching a unanimous decision. Members declined to comment as they left court after the verdict.
AP Photo/Frank Franklin II 
Salman’s lawyers also declined to comment. They are asking the judge to overturn the verdict and acquit him, as federal law allows if a judge believes the evidence presented at a trial does not legally support a conviction. Such requests are often made but rarely granted.
Salman’s conviction carries up to 10 years in prison. Sentencing is currently set for February 2.
The Islamic State group, which the U.S. government labels a terrorist group, seized large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and declared the territory a caliphate. Despite its defeat in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, the group still has sleeper cells carrying out deadly attacks in both countries.
“Corpses everywhere”
Born in Brooklyn, Salman was 17 when her father took her family on what she thought was a trip to visit relatives in Turkey in 2017. Instead, the van crossed the border into Syria, where masked gunmen surrounded them. Salman said she was scared and confused and had no idea where her father was taking them.
“I blame my father for a lot of things that happened,” she testified.
She said she spent three months in housing run by the Islamic State group before being reunited with her family. They moved twice because their homes were hit by airstrikes.
While there, she married German-Afghan ISIS fighter Abu Ali, according to court documents.
On the first day of her marriage, Salman recalls, her husband told her: “Get up, stupid woman, it’s time for you to be a wife.”
She spent much of her marriage doing domestic work for her husband and mother-in-law. His father died after being injured in an airstrike in 2018.
Prosecutors insisted Salman was dishonest and had more influence in Syria than she claimed. They got her to admit during cross-examination that she had once sent a religious song about Osama bin Laden to her husband. Prosecutors also disputed Salman’s account of a poor marriage, citing two affectionate text messages she sent to her husband.
“The evidence shows that the defendant received military training from a violent and brutal terrorist organization – an organization responsible for attacks across the globe,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Shami told the jury during her closing argument last week.
Salman’s husband took a video of her holding an assault rifle, which prosecutors said she was trained to use. When she testified, Salman said she was only obeying her husband’s request to carry the rifle.
Jane Rosenberg / REUTERS 
She recalled that her last year of marriage was particularly difficult, as incessant bombing sometimes forced them to live on the streets, where she remembers seeing “dead bodies everywhere.”
The couple eventually fled with other refugees in a truck, where she told her husband they were going to separate, and Salman said she never saw him again.
She was arrested in Baghouz, Syria, in 2019 by forces opposing the Islamic State group. She was arrested by American authorities upon her return to New York in 2024.
Kurdish forces are still holding around 2,200 foreign relatives of suspected IS fighters in a camp in northeast Syria, an official told AFP earlier this month.
The Program on Extremism has identified 83 U.S. adults who traveled to Syria or Iraq since 2011 and were affiliated with jihadist groups there.
“The atrocities committed by ISIS, including mass executions, sexual slavery, and systematic terror of civilian populations, represent some of the most serious crimes of our time,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said in a statement Tuesday. “There is simply no excuse for aligning yourself with or receiving military training from an organization responsible for such suffering. Today’s verdict sends a clear message: those who support this death cult will be found and prosecuted.
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