Why a Booktrail?
2000s: Inside Islamic State’s Recruitment Networks
Undercover Jihadi Bride
What you need to know before your trail
Twenty-year-old ‘Mélodie’, a recent convert to Islam, meets the leader of an ISIS brigade on Facebook. In 48 hours he has ‘fallen in love’ with her, calls her every hour, urges her to marry him, join him in Syria in a life of paradise – and join his jihad.
Anna Erelle is the undercover journalist behind ‘Melodie’. Created to investigate the powerful propaganda weapons of Islamic State, ‘Melodie’ is soon sucked in by Bilel, right-hand man of the infamous Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. An Iraqi for whose capture the US government has promised $10 million, al-Baghdadi is described by Time Magazine as the most dangerous man in the world and by himself as the caliph of Islamic State. Bilel shows off his jeep, his guns, his expensive watch. He boasts about the people he has just killed.
With Bilel impatient for his future wife, ‘Melodie’ embarks on her highly dangerous mission, which – at its ultimate stage – will go very wrong … Enticed into this lethal online world like hundreds of other young people, including many young British girls and boys, Erelle’s harrowing and gripping investigation helps us to understand the true face of terrorism.
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
Syria
This is a French journalists account of how young people are being recruited from Western countries via the internet to go and fight in Syria.
The journalist doesn’t go to the country herself but the chilling part is her discovery of how youngsters are caught and trapped in a web of propaganda and hate.
A crazed and infamous ISIS fighter contacts her when she’s online and within weeks, he’s fallen in love with her and wants her to join him in Syria.
Although much of the action takes place over the internet, the situation in Syria and Raqqa is highlighted with the process of how Isis recruits its people, the most frightening part of all.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Undercover Jihadi Bride
Destination: Syria Author/Guide: Anna Erelle Departure Time: 2014
Back to ResultsWhere Next?
