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‘Jihad is so simple’: Norwegian posts Isis vid

A 29-year-old ethnic Norwegian Islamist has called on other Scandinavians to travel to Syria to join the terror group Isis, in a propaganda video posted online on Sunday.

Published: 3 February 2015 08:43 CET
Michael Nikolai Skråmo, who styles himself Abo Ibrahim Al Swedi, appears in the video wearing desert camouflage and clutching an assault rifle, and proceeds to give practical and motivational encouragement to would-be jihadis. 
 
“My brothers, ‘hijra’ (migration) and ‘jihad’ are so simple. It only costs a few thousand ‘lapp’ [Swedish kroner],” he says in Swedish. “Do you not wish in in your heart to fight and show God what you have to offer him? The door to jihad is standing there waiting for you. It’s the fastest way to Jannah [Paradise]." 
 
 
Skråmo, who has two Norwegian parents but was born and grew up near Gothenburg in Sweden, moved to Raqqah, the capital of the fledgling Islamic State in Syria, back in September with his wife and two children, hoping to fight alongside Islamic State soldiers.
 
According to Sweden’s Expressen newspaper, the 29-year-old got in contact with his Norwegian father in the autumn, asking him for help renewing his Norwegian passport. Norwegian newspaper VG said it had failed to discover whether he had succeeded in getting a new Norwegian passport. 

 
Skråmo trained as a chef in Gothenburg before converting to Islam in 2005, after which he travelled widely in the Islamic world, learning Arabic and studying the religion.
 
According to an article on the blog of Svenksa Dagbladet journalist Per Gudmundson, Skråmo became a well-known radical preacher at the Multicultural Youth Centre at Gothenburg's Bellevue mosque, and was an open supporter of the American-Yemeni al-Qaeda ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki before he was killed in a missile strike in 2011. 
 
“My brothers and sisters” he begins his video after a short recital in Arabic. “What’s going on in the world is a war against Islam. You know it and I know it.” 
 
At the end of the video,  Skråmo becomes more emotional.
 
"I want you to be here with me. I want us to hang out in Jannah. My wonderful brothers, take this decision, trust in Allah, sacrificing your money and your life for Allah, and you will receive the highest from Allah ".
 



ISIS

Ex-jihadi housewife jailed in Norway for joining IS

A Norwegian court on Tuesday sentenced a woman who lived as a housewife in Syria to prison for being a member of the Islamic State group (IS), despite not actively fighting herself.

Published: 4 May 2021 20:11 CEST
Ex-jihadi housewife jailed in Norway for joining IS
The Kurdish-run al-Hol camp which holds suspected relatives of Islamic State fighters.Photo: Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

The Oslo court sentenced the Norwegian-Pakistani woman to three and a half years in prison for “participating in a terrorist organisation” by taking care of her household and enabling her three husbands to fight.

“By travelling to an area controlled by IS in Syria… by moving in and living with her husbands, taking care of the children and various tasks at home, the defendant enabled her three husbands to actively participate in IS fighting,” judge Ingmar Nilsen said as he read out the verdict.

Being a housewife to three successive husbands did not render her a passive bystander, the judge said.

“On the contrary, she was a supporter who enabled the jihad, looked after her three husbands at home and raised the new generation of IS recruits,” he said.

The young woman, who admitted having “radical ideas” at the time, left for Syria in early 2013 to join an Islamist fighter, Bastian Vasquez, who was fighting the regime.

Although she did not take up arms herself, she was accused of having allowed her husbands to go fight while taking care of her two children and household chores.

The trial was the first prosecution in Norway of someone who had returned after joining IS.

“This is a special case,” prosecutor Geir Evanger acknowledged during the trial.

“This is the first time that, to put it bluntly, someone has been charged for being a wife and mother.”

The prosecution had called for a four-year sentence, while the defence had called for her acquittal and immediately appealed Tuesday’s verdict.

The woman’s lawyer, Nils Christian Nordhus, argued that his client had quickly wanted to leave Syria after being subjected to domestic violence.

She had also been a victim of human trafficking because she had been held against her will, he added.

But the judge stressed that she had participated in the organisation “knowingly” and of her own will.

The woman was repatriated to Norway in early 2020 on humanitarian grounds with her two children, including a young boy described as seriously ill.

At least four other Norwegian women and their children are being held in Kurdish-controlled camps in Syria.

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