Ariel Bradley
Ariel Bradley | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 1, 1985 Hixson, Tennessee, United States |
| Died | November 29, 2018 (aged 33) Al Sha'afa, Syria |
| Known for | American who joined the Islamic State |
| Spouse(s) | Yasin Mohamad (2011-2015); Tareq Kamleh (2015-2018) |
| Children | 3 (1 deceased, 1 missing) |
Ariel Dawn Bradley (September 1, 1985 – November 29, 2018) was an American-born convert to Islam who traveled to Syria with her husband, Yasin Mohamad, and joined the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2014. After Mohamad's death she married an Australian jihadi, Tareq Kamleh. Bradley is believed to have been killed in an airstrike in 2018. In 2021, her daughter was rescued from a Syrian detention camp and brought to the United States.
Early life
Bradley was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on September 1, 1985 and grew up in Hixson as the third of five children in an impoverished family. She was homeschooled by her mother, a devout member of the Pentecostal Church of God.[1] The curriculum focused mainly on religion and Bradley later told friends she knew her education was lacking and that she thought her mother had tried to "keep her away from materials that would make her question Christianity." She did not even learn to read until her preteen years.[2]
Bradley studied for her GED, but could not afford the prep classes and never took the test. In her mid-teens, she ran away from home and dated a series of older men, something a friend of hers characterized as "survival sex." In 2009, she became pregnant and had an abortion without telling the child's father, although she wanted children. She got multiple tattoos, drank heavily and experimented with drugs, and she worked a series of low-paying jobs, including at a plant nursery, at coffee shops and at the Tennessee Aquarium. She was active in several social justice groups in Chattanooga and traveled out of state to protest.[2]
In 2010, Bradley met a young Syrian Muslim man. Although they never dated, they talked often, particularly about Islam. The man eventually ended his friendship with Bradley, and after this her behavior began to change. She began spending a lot of time alone in her bedroom and began dressing more conservatively. In the spring of 2011, after several months of researching the religion online, Bradley formally converted to Islam and invited her boss and some friends to the mosque to witness it. She was very devout and attended Friday prayers every week, and said she wanted to be with someone who was a practicing Muslim.[2]
At age 26, she met Yasin Mohamad, a 21-year-old Swedish Muslim born in Iraq, on a Muslim matrimony site called Half Our Deen. The website matched them with a 70% compatibility rating and the couple was interviewed for the site's "Success Stories" page.[2] They communicated over WhatsApp and Skype. After they got engaged, in accordance with Mohamad's wishes, Bradley stopped listening to music and stopped talking to any men who were not in her immediate family; she would not even order food from a male restaurant server. In December 2011, she flew to Sweden to meet Mohamad in person for the first time, and a few days later they married, and soon Bradley became pregnant. She returned to the United States for the pregnancy and the birth of their daughter, Aminah. The baby was born in Chattanooga in December 2012. A few months later, Bradley took her back to Sweden.[2][3]
ISIL and rescue of daughter
In early 2015, Mohamad and Bradley (who was pregnant by then with another child, a boy she would name Yaqub) took Aminah to Syria. Bradley told her mother that she and Mohamad were going on a "mission trip" to the Middle East to help his family. Her mother did not find out she was in Syria until she was contacted by BuzzFeed, but said she had been concerned that Bradley could be involved in extremism.[1][2] The family settled in Al-Bab.[2]
She remained active on social media after her departure, creating multiple Twitter accounts using variations of the names "Umm Aminah" and "Emarah bint Aljon", talking about her life in Syria. In February 2015 she tweeted, "Being a muslimah, mommy, non Arabic speaker n [sic] Sham & wife of a mujahid brings heavy trails [sic]. in sha Allah I pass this test." She wrote about the noise from bombs waking her in the mornings and said, "Not death I should fear but the state I meet it in. May Allah guide us & give us shaheed." Muhammad Abdulazeez, the perpetrator of the 2015 Chattanooga shootings, was also from Hixson, and when the shootings happened Bradley tweeted, "Gifted this morning not only with Eid but w/ the news of a brother puttin [sic] fear n the heart of kufar n the city of my birth. Alhamdullilah."[2]
At some point after June 2015, Mohamad was killed in an airstrike.[1] Bradley got married again to Tareq Kamleh, an Australian-born doctor for the Islamic State Health Service. In 2016, they had a son, Yousef. Kamleh was reported to have been killed in the final battle for Raqqa, ISIL's Syrian capital, in September or October 2017.[4] Bradley and the children were able to escape from Raqqa around the time of Kamleh's reported death, and went to Hajin in Deir ez-Zor. It is believed that Bradley and her son Yousef were killed in a coalition airstrike on the Al Yarmouk Women’s Hospital in the village of Al Sha'afa near Hajin on November 29, 2018.[3]
Kamleh had had another wife, a Somali nurse who called herself Umm Yakeen[5] and was a fanatical ISIL supporter. She took in Aminah after Bradley was killed.[6][7] After ISIL lost the last of its territory at the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani, Aminah and Umm Yakeen were sent to the Al-Hawl refugee camp, then to the Al-Roj refugee camp. The woman was hiding her because she did not want her to be taken to the United States. In July 2021, the Syrian Democratic Forces raided the section of Al-Roj where Umm Yakeen and Aminah were living, and took Aminah. Peter Galbraith facilitated the rescue. Aminah was sent to a rehabilitation center pending transfer to the United States, where her maternal grandparents and other relatives live in the Chattanooga area.[3] Aminah was eight years old at the time of her rescue.[8] Her brother Yaqub is missing.[3]
In July 2026, Kamleh resurfaced alive in a jail in Baghdad, Iraq. He is believed to have retreated during the Battle of Raqqa with other ISIL members and survived for two years undetected, working as a field doctor, until he eventually surrendered to or was arrested by the Syrian Democratic Forces in March 2019. He was then extradited to Iraq and has been imprisoned there ever since. He is currently one of 13 men linked to ISIL who are seeking repatriation back to Australia.[9]
See also
References
- 1 2 3 "Ariel Bradley". Counter Extremism Project. Retrieved June 16, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Hall, Ellie (July 21, 2015). "How One Young Woman Went From Fundamentalist Christian To ISIS Bride". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved June 16, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 Hall, Ellie (August 2, 2021). "A Young American Girl Whose Mother Joined ISIS And Died Has Been Rescued, A Former US Diplomat Says". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved June 16, 2026.
- ↑ Whinnett, Ellen (June 8, 2018). "South Australian-trained doctor Abu Yusuf al-Australie reportedly killed in Syria fighting for ISIS". The Advertiser. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
- ↑ "Australian woman was cunning 'Sharia judge' in Syrian camp, ABC told". ABC News. July 12, 2026. Retrieved July 21, 2026.
- ↑ "US-born girl rescued from Syrian camp after growing up under ISIS | New York Post". August 2, 2021. Retrieved May 27, 2026.
- ↑ "A Young American Girl Whose Mother Joined ISIS And Died Has Been Rescued, A Former US Diplomat Says". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on May 28, 2024. Retrieved May 27, 2026.
- ↑ "American girl whose mother died after joining Isis rescued from Syria". The Independent. August 3, 2021. Retrieved June 16, 2026.
- ↑ "Perth's 'Dr Jihad' reportedly back from the dead". The West Australian. July 21, 2026. Retrieved July 21, 2026.