Brave Women Risk Lives To Secretly Record Footage Inside ISIS Stronghold Of Raqqa

Two exceptionally brave women risked being executed to show the world what it’s like to live in Raqqa, Syria’s capital and the oppressive stronghold of ISIS. Hiding a camera under their burqa, the valiant women secretly recorded a fascinating video showing ordinary life under the draconian Islamic State regime.

The revealing film was commissioned by CNN Swedish affiliate Expressen TV, and reveals the harsh and totalitarian reign of ISIS in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa. The video, which was filmed in late winter, shows the women shopping, taking a taxi and walking around neighborhoods. The de facto capital of the Islamic State was once a bustling city, but civil war, bombing by international forces and uncompromising rule by ISIS has caused most to flee.

“Everyone’s left,” one of the unidentified women says. “Foreign ISIS fighters have set up checkpoints, taken the ID cards of Syrians and use them to flee to Turkey.”

The streets are filled with heavily armed Daesh terrorists as well as the religious police that are called “Hisbah,” who also carry assault weapons. Their role is to walk around the city and ensure that everyone is abiding by Sharia law.

The first stop by the women is a shop to purchase hair dye. All of the boxes have been scribbled by black marker to cover the faces of the models on the box. Under Sharia law, women must cover their face with a niqab or a veil.

“I long to take off the niqab and the darkness that cloaks us, for good. Nothing matters more than freedom,” one of the women in the video by the name of Oum Mohammad pleads. “All women like to show their faces. We’ve lost that option. We’ve lost our femininity,”

The women take a taxi, and ask the driver what would happen if he was caught driving a woman alone. “Well, they would stop the car and punish you with 30 lashes,” he replies. “The woman would be punished as well.”

Oum Mohammad tells the horrific story about the public execution of a young man that she attended. “I could see there was a man sitting on the ground,” she said. “The executioners were lined up, they were dressed in black.”

She couldn’t bear to watch the heinous execution, but she was forced. “They execute with bullets, desecrate the body, decapitate it, stick the head on a spike and put it on display at the roundabout,” she said. “Or they will put the body on the road and force cars to run it over until nothing is left.”

Tomorrow, Tuesday, will be five years since the start of Syria’s civil war that has displaced more than 12 million people and the United Nations estimates that there have been 250,000 casualties. Daesh captured Raqqa in 2013, and made it the capital of their self-proclaimed caliphate. If you want to learn more about the timeline of event from the Syrian civil war you may want to check out “Syria’s civil war: five years of Guardian reporting.”