Submit your comments on this article |
Iraq-Jordan |
Militants force local women to wed foreign fighters |
2004-10-10 |
A " According to local residents, Mr al-Jaburi has threatened his followers with death if they do not respond to the letters distributed at his mosque, which place a religious obligation on recipients. "Join your daughters to our Syrian brothers who have come to help Iraq," they read. "Allah says you must marry your daughters to good men. We ask each honest father that lives in Mosul city to support the project in order to be a real Muslim and achieve the glory of the holy Koran." The first Syrian man to be married at the mosque was killed soon after during an ambush on American troops. Shihab Rifaie, who was purportedly in Mosul dealing in imported second hand cars, married an 18-year-old called Sara whose father had put her name on the mosque list. Her family refused to talk about their late son-in-law but a neighbour, Yunis Lilou, said: "I am too astonished for words that these people would make their daughters marry a suicide terrorist. We must control the situation and destroy this movement." Local police say they are aware of the forced marriages but are unable to tackle the problem because of the culture of fear perpetuated by the foreign jihadists. Families have been torn apart over the marriages, with fatal consequences. At the end of last month, a 24-year-old local man, Ayad Mazher, killed a young Syrian fighter who had won the agreement of his father to marry his sister, Sarhan. |
Posted by:Fred |