B.C. ‘sexy senior’ was part of ISIS women’s battalion, RCMP alleges | 24CA News
A B.C. lady who returned residence from Syria final 12 months was a part of the all-female battalion of the Islamic State, in response to RCMP allegations unsealed on Tuesday.
Kimberly Polman served within the Katibah Nusaybah, an ISIS department that supplied weapons coaching to ladies, the RCMP wrote in a report summarizing its investigation.
The 122-page police report, obtained by Global News, mentioned Katibah Nusaybah skilled Polman “to fight physically and with weapons,” earlier than she was assigned to an ISIS medical unit.
She additionally helped transfer weapons for ISIS, was an informant for its secret police and married two members of the group, most just lately a builder of explosive units, the RCMP alleged.
The RCMP moreover alleged the 51-year-old belonged to the Sexy Seniors, older ladies who “were dedicated to the cause, and did many jobs for ISIS, because they did not have young families to care for.”
The particulars of the investigation, known as Project Stiletto, had been filed in B.C. provincial court docket on Oct. 27, 2022, after Global Affairs Canada flew Polman residence from a jail camp in northeast Syria.
Screenshot from an Islamic State propaganda video purporting to point out feminine jihadist fighters.
The allegations are the primary comprensive look inside an investigation into the Canadian ladies of ISIS, however they may not be reported till a decide dominated on the RCMP’s software for a terrorism peace bond for Polman.
A decide in Chilliwack, B.C. ordered the peace bond on Tuesday. It locations restrictions on Polman within the identify of public security for eight months. She has not been charged with any crimes.
Polman has publicly portrayed herself as a sufferer who was lured to Syria by a person she met on-line, and realized her mistake upon arriving in ISIS territory.
In a letter to Canadians, she wrote she was an “innocent woman” who solely needed to assist kids and “ended up with bad people.”
But the RCMP depicted her as manipulative, and mentioned these near her had described her as a “pathological liar.”
“Contrary to the narrative currently being propagated by Polman to journalists — that she was a naive and anti-ISIS captive in Syria — information collected by investigators suggests that Polman was an ISIS adherent and supporter,” it mentioned.
“Furthermore, Polman was well aware of what ISIS was before she entered Syria.”
She not solely carried a firearm and knife, but additionally “handled and transported guns for the benefit of ISIS,” wrote the RCMP, which mentioned Polman’s kids feared she may flip violent as soon as again in Canada.
“Ms. Polman’s own son told investigators he would not be surprised if she strapped a bomb to her chest.”
The RCMP investigation into Kimberly Polman was known as Project Stiletto.
Stewart Bell/Global News
The RCMP mentioned she advised her household she didn’t go to Syria for her husband. “Ms. Polman went there for herself,” a Crown prosecutor alleged at her bail listening to.
According to the allegations, she believed Syria was “God’s plan for her.”
A mom of three from B.C.’s Lower Mainland, Polman transformed to Islam following the 9/11 terrorist assaults and subsequently entered right into a sequence of marriages to males from Saskatchewan to Kuwait.
In mid-2014, household and mates observed her turning into “more radical” and expressing assist for ISIS, the Crown alleged. She sought out “radical Islamic ideology,” and pursued “the teachings of radical imams,” the Crown advised the court docket.
Kimberly Polman, at Roj Camp, Syria, April 3, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Maya Alleruzzo.
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Through on-line discussion groups, she linked with ISIS members, and in September 2014, wed a Somali ISIS fighter in his mid-20s who was raised in Kenya and educated in Malaysia.
A month later, when a Libyan-Canadian killed a soldier on the battle memorial in Ottawa, Polman “dismissed” the assault to her son, police alleged.
Her son additionally mentioned she defended ISIS when it put a captured Jordanian pilot right into a cage and burned him alive, including she was “a fan of the actions.”
Before leaving for Syria, she requested a detailed good friend to affix her, saying they might construct a “utopia,” however the good friend refused, the police report alleged.
To finance her journey, Polman obtained meals reward playing cards from the National Zakat Fund, a Muslim charity. She then offered them to her son, the RCMP alleged.
On July 21, 2015, Polman left Vancouver airport for Vienna. She travelled with out her standard headband, which the Crown alleged was an try and “hide her true intentions.”
From Austria, she flew to Turkey, the place ISIS smuggled her into Raqqah, the ISIS capital in Syria. A good friend in Canada advised police Polman had subsequently phoned to say she had pledged allegiance to the ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“You live in the land of disbelievers,” she allegedly advised her daughter in an Aug. 8, 2015, message. “I’m with good Muslims here. You’d love it here, you should come here.”
For the primary two months, Polman lived at a guesthouse for ISIS international ladies, in response to a pocket book seized by the FBI and shared with the RCMP.
Polman obtained weapons coaching from the ISIS feminine battalion, the RCMP alleged, including she could have additionally been skilled on “explosive vests.”
A U.S. court docket sentenced American ISIS member Allison Fluke-Ekren to twenty years for terrorism. (Alexandria Sheriff’s Office by way of AP, File).
The ladies’s battalion was headed by Allison Fluke-Ekren, a Muslim convert from Kansas nicknamed the Empress of ISIS.
Fluke-Ekren skilled ISIS ladies to make use of AK-47 assault rifles, grenades and suicide belts, the U.S. Department of Justice mentioned after she was sentenced to twenty years.
“Over 100 women and young girls, some as young as 10 years old, received military training from Fluke-Ekren in Syria on behalf of ISIS.”
Following coaching, Polman was despatched to ISIS-controlled hospitals, the place she “tended to wounded ISIS fighters,” the RCMP report alleged.
Her first husband, Suheib, was a member of the Somali terrorist group Al Shabab and a “soldier” in ISIS, the decide mentioned in her choice. After injuring his again, he was assigned to the Emni, the ISIS intelligence department.
Polman additionally turned an informant of the Emni, in response to the RCMP, which primarily based its conclusion partly on info obtained from one other Canadian ISIS lady.
“If someone said something critical of ISIS, or about wanting to leave, Polman would report that person to the Emni,” the RCMP alleged.
The Emni would then arrest and torture the individual, the Canadian ISIS member (who has additionally now returned to Canada), advised investigators.
Eighteen months into her marriage, Polman and Suheib divorced after she received upset that he had married a second spouse, the RCMP alleged.
She then married a Trinidadian named Ali, who manufactured rockets and mines for ISIS, in response to the RCMP. The Crown known as him “highly dangerous.”
He is believed to be Safraz Ali, who advised Global News in an interview in Syria in 2019 that ISIS had tried to recruit him for assaults in North America.
Although he claimed to have lived in Calgary, police mentioned there was no document he had ever entered Canada.
Often downplayed as “ISIS brides,” ladies had been central to the group’s aim of forming a state ruled in response to its extremist ideology, the Crown argued.
Women had been wanted to “produce offspring to build the caliphate,” but additionally to supply companies corresponding to well being care, in response to the Crown’s case.
“So it wasn’t as though women were secondary to the goals of ISIS or to the goal of building the caliphate,” the Crown prosecutor argued in court docket.
“They were central.”
One of Polman’s roles was to prepare dinner for Ali’s explosives unit, the RCMP alleged, including she “loved” that he was within the bomb-making group and “used to brag about it.”
When Raqqah started to fall to Kurdish fighters backed by the worldwide coalition in 2017, Polman fled with ISIS because it retreated east in the direction of the Iraqi border.
Sean Moore, left, of Chatham, Ont., was contacted about getting Polman again to Canada, RCMP alleged.
According to the RCMP, in 2018, Polman’s household contacted an Ontario man named Sean Moore to assist deliver her again to Canada.
Moore, who calls himself a humanitarian and had visited northern Iraq through the battle in opposition to ISIS, advised police Polman had requested if he may deliver Ali to Canada along with her, the RCMP alleged.
To police, it was regarding that Polman was attempting to import “a clear threat to Canada’s public safety.”
On Jan. 20, 2019, Polman and Ali had been arrested by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, together with 1000’s of different international nationals who had been taken to prisons and detention camps.
Even whereas she was detained, Polman “maintained contact” with pro-ISIS parts in Canada, in response to the allegations.
Polman and Ali allegedly communicated with “ISIS supporters in Canada who said they were interested in ‘doing something’ in Canada.”
Canadian diplomats, left, in northeast Syria to safe the discharge of Kimberly Polman in October 2022.
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Investigators spoke to Polman’s household and mates, who mentioned she shouldn’t be trusted.
“Each of Polman’s relatives described Polman as mentally unstable, and potentially mentally ill, however, investigators have been unable to confirm the extent and nature of her mental health.”
“Further, in each of their statements, Polman’s close family members have stated that Polman cannot be relied upon to tell the truth about ISIS or her intentions.”
Although Polman made repeated pleas from Syria to come back again to Canada, her daughter advised police to be cautious.
“My mom abandoned me to join a terrorist organization. We aren’t sure if she should really come back because she might try to blow us all up.”
Her son mentioned, “I’d say, the best thing is to keep her locked up.”
Last October, Canada’s Global Affairs flew Polman again to Montreal. She was arrested however launched to dwell at residence in B.C. underneath court-ordered situations.
Among the restrictions imposed on her Tuesday was a ban on driving. The Crown had argued it “doesn’t take a lot to kill a lot of people if you can get into a motor vehicle.”
She is certainly one of 9 ladies Global Affairs has helped repatriate from camps for ISIS detainees in Syria. Only two have been charged.
Polman mentioned she had no intention of committing any crimes, and was attending counseling by means of the de-radicalization program Shift B.C.
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
