What’s it like being married to the world’s most-wanted terrorist?
Ex-wife of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has spoken of their marriage
Saja al-Dulaimi called world’s most wanted terrorist a ‘normal family man’
But she told of pair’s ‘shallow’ and unhappy marriage before she left him
Al-Dulaimi said her ex ‘loved their children’ but spoke only to give orders
Insight: Saja al-Dulaimi, the ex-wife of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (pictured), has described the world’s most wanted terrorist as a ‘normal family man’ who ‘loved their children’ but spoke only to give orders
The ex-wife of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has described the world’s most wanted terrorist as a ‘normal family man’ who ‘loved their children’ but spoke only to give orders.
Saja al-Dulaimi told how she met and married who she thought was a university lecturer, only to discover seven years later he was ‘the most dangerous man in the world.’
Lifting the lid on what she described as their ‘shallow’ and unhappy marriage, al-Dulaimi told how al-Baghdadi had a ‘mysterious personality’ and she dared not have discussions with him.
Tough to live with: Lifting the lid on what she described as their ‘shallow’ and unhappy marriage, al-Dulaimi (pictured) told how al-Baghdadi had a ‘mysterious personality’ and she dared not have discussions with him
‘I didn’t love him,’ she told Swedish newspaper Expressen. ‘He was an enigmatic person. You couldn’t have a discussion or hold a normal conversation with him … He just asked about things and told me to fetch things. He gave orders, nothing more.’
Al-Dulaimi told how al-Baghdadi would disappear for days at a time but she had no suspicions of his involvement in the Syrian resistance while they were together.
‘He was a normal family man,’ she added. ‘How he could become emir of the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world is a mystery.’
She said that after her first husband died in an Iraqi resistance group her uncle approached her father about a potential new husband looking for a widow.
Al-Dulaimi then moved her and her young twin boys in with al-Baghdadi and his first wife and her children, an arrangement she described as ‘tough’ in such a small space.
ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi dead in Iraq
Al-Dulaimi said she only knew of what al-Baghdadi had become when she was arrested in Lebanon in 2014 for trying to cross the border illegally. She and her new husband had used forged identity cards
Her children looked at the ISIS leader as their ‘idol’, she said, but al-Dulaimi told how she fled from him after just a few months while pregnant with a daughter, Hagar.
She claims the last time she spoke to her ex-husband was in 2009 when he asked her to come back and she refused.
Al-Dulaimi said she only knew of what al-Baghdadi had become when she was arrested in Lebanon in December 2014 for trying to cross the border illegally. She and her new husband had used forged identity cards.
‘He was an enigmatic person. You couldn’t have a discussion or hold a normal conversation with him‘ – Saja al-Dulaimi on the leader of ISIS
It was then she was shown pictures of al-Baghdadi and asked if she recognised him.
Al-Dulaimi was released by Lebanon a year later in a prisoner swap with Al-Qaeda’s Syrian wing.
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