Egyptian TV News Report Alleges Turkey Supplying Weapons to Nigeria’s Boko Haram

Raymond Ibrahim, a Shillman Fellow in Journalism at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and an expert on the Middle East and Islam, appeared on CBN’s Newswatch to talk more about Turkey’s alleged ties to Islamic terrorism.

Turkey is clearly a terrorist state with a broad reach, according to an Egyptian television news program. Ten.tv reports Turkey is supplying weapons to Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Ten.tv host Nasha’t al-Deyhi reported on a leak confirming an intercepted phone call from a few years back – confirming the action. 

He reported in part: “Today’s leak confirms without a doubt that Erdogan, his state, his government, and his party are transferring weapons from Turkey to – this is a shock, to where you may ask – to Nigeria; and to whom? – to the Boko Haram organization.”

Raymond Ibrahim is the Shillman Fellow in Journalism at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an expert on the Middle East and Islam. During an interview on CBN‘s Newswatch, Ibrahim said he’s not surprised by the Ten.tv report. 

“The tape was made in 2014 or 15 and it was reported widely in certain areas, in the US and the west not so much and not much came out of it,” Ibrahim said. “The reason I think is that (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan didn’t have his fingers so much in Islamist politics outside of his own nation.”

THIS WAS FOUR YEARS AGO
Turkish President, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan on assured Nigeria of its support in the fight against terrorist, Boko Haram. He gave the assurance at a joint press conference after holding bilateral talks with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

“But now that we’ve seen Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ISIS Islamic state caliph that was killed recently, and he was found just three miles from the Turkish border, which is, in fact, the last bastion of jihadi-so-called ‘freedom fighters’ attacking the Syrian government,” he told CBN News.

“It has brought it up again, he (Erdogan) is supporting ISIS,” Ibrahim noted. “Now we’re remembering and that was I think the point of the Egyptian show, we’re bringing back to see that there’s some continuity here. He’s involved with some of the worst Islamic terror groups. If you remember, Boko Haram, whose name loosely means ‘western education is forbidden’, (Haram) was basically doing what ISIS was doing and is notorious for – years before ISIS was doing it. 

“One of the things international observers have been noticing, especially increasingly, is that their armaments, their weapons are very sophisticated,” he continued. “It’s even spilled into the Fulani tribesmen in Nigeria and other parts of Africa. For example, in Burkina Faso, also in western Africa the attacks on Christians have become horrific in just the last few months.”

As CBN News reported, a senior State Department official said last week that Turkey is backing forces in Syria who have the same radical ideology as ISIS.

“The problem is that the people doing the fighting are these ill-disciplined Arab militias, some of whom we’ve worked within the past when we were arming the opposition, but many of whom are (a) ill-disciplined, and (b) relatively radical, and their ideology is essentially Islamic ideology,” the official said.

A fragile government in northern Syria called the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAA) released a statement on Tuesday saying that Erdogan seeks to subjugate them through radical Islam.

“Erdogan plans to turn are free, democratic region back into turmoil under radical Islamic occupation,” the government said.

Critics of Erdogan’s invasion say he is trying to revive the Ottoman Empire and establish a new caliphate.

“Their open intention is to restore the original caliphate which was disbanded in 1924,” said Dalton Thomas of Frontier Alliance International.

Recently Turkey’s defense minister posted a map to his social media that shows portions of Greece, Syria, and Iraq as part of a greater Turkey.

Defense Minister Hulusi Akar posted a message alongside the map: “We have no eyes on anyone’s soil. We will only take what’s ours.”

The map reflects the 1920 Ottoman National Pact that includes lands Turkey believes it deserved at the end of World War I.

Trump vetoes Senate to push through $8B in Saudi arms sales

President Donald Trump has vetoed a trio of resolutions aimed at blocking his deal with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The action is the third time Trump has vetoed a congressional measure.

“This resolution would weaken America’s global competitiveness and damage the important relationships we share with our allies and partners,” Trump said in his veto messages Wednesday.

Last month, the Senate passed 22 resolutions designed to halt the administration’s pending sale of $8.1 billion in arms. Senators cited Saudi Arabia’s role in the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the war in Yemen and the administration not seeking congressional approval for the transaction as their reasons. RELATED U.S. Air Force expands operating base in Saudi Arabia

The sales would include mortar bombs, missiles, drones, repair and maintenance services, and precision-guided munitions. Trump approved the sales under the Arms Export Control Act, which typically requires congressional review.

“The United States is very concerned about the conflict’s toll on innocent civilians and is working to bring the conflict in Yemen to an end,” Trump added.

“But we cannot end it through ill-conceived and time-consuming resolutions that fail to address its root causes. Rather than expend time and resources on such resolutions, I encourage the Congress to direct its efforts toward supporting our work to achieve peace through a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Yemen.” RELATED Lockheed awarded $1.4B contract for Saudi THAAD system

The Senate would need 67 votes to override Trump’s veto.

“I condemn the president’s decision and I’ll continue using every tool at my disposal to bring accountability to his foreign policy, including closing the loopholes that led to this arms sale fiasco in the first place,” Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., tweeted.

Cease-fire holds after day of intense Israel-Hamas fighting

© The Associated Press Smoke raises in the background following an Israeli airstrike hits a governmental building in Gaza City , Saturday, July 14, 2018. The Israeli military carried out its largest daytime airstrike campaign in Gaza since the 2014 war as Hamas militants fired dozens of rockets into Israel, threatening to spark a wider conflagration after weeks of tensions along the volatile border. No casualties or major damage was reported on either side, and Israel said it was focused on hitting military targets and was warning Gaza civilians to keep their distance from certain sites.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military lifted its restrictions along the Gaza border area on Sunday, indicating it had accepted an Egypt-mediated cease-fire to end an intense, 24-hour round of fighting with Hamas militants that had threatened to devolve into war.

The military had shut down a popular beach and placed limitations on large gatherings as residents kept mostly close to home on Saturday amid dozens of rockets that were fired from Gaza. But after several hours of calm it said summer camps would operate as usual and residents could resume their daily routines.

On Saturday, the military carried out its largest wave of airstrikes in Gaza since the 2014 war, hitting several Hamas military compounds and flattening a number of its training camps. Two Palestinian teenagers were killed in an airstrike in Gaza City, while four Israelis were wounded from a rocket that landed on a residential home.

The Israeli military said several mortar shells were fired even after Hamas announced the cease-fire as sirens warning of incoming projectiles wailed in Israel overnight again. The military struck the mortar launcher early Sunday but calm held for several hours after and neither side appears eager to resume hostilities.

The Israeli military said it unleashed Saturday’s barrage in response to weeks of violence along the Gaza border — including a grenade attack Friday that wounded an officer — as well as sustained Hamas rocket attacks and a lengthy campaign of launching incendiary kites and balloons that have devastated Israeli farmlands and nature reserves along the coastal strip.

Hamas responded with more than 200 projectiles toward Israel communities, evoking the memories of the three wars the sides have waged over the past decade. Israel said its Iron Dome defense system shot down more than 20 projectiles.

Israel also destroyed several Hamas attack tunnels, as well as factories involved in the production of the incendiary kites and balloons, and a Hamas battalion headquarters in northern Gaza.

Two teenagers were killed and several others were wounded when Israel struck an unfinished five-story building near a Hamas security compound and a public park in Gaza City, reducing the structure to rubble. The military says the abandoned building once served as the Palestinian National Library but in recent years was used by Hamas as a training facility for urban warfare and it had dug an offensive tunnel under the building that was part of its underground network.

That strike triggered a launch toward the long-suffering border town of Sderot, where a rocket scored a direct hit on the Buchris family home.

“We were sitting in the living room and all of a sudden the aquarium exploded and there was smoke everywhere and glasses flew everywhere and we were filled with blood,” said Aharon Buchris, wounded along with his wife and two teenage daughters, as he awaited surgery in hospital.

Israel has been warning Hamas in recent weeks that while it has no interest in exacerbating hostilities, it will not tolerate Gaza militants’ continued efforts to breach the border and its campaign to devastate Israeli border communities with incendiary attacks.

Hamas-led border protests are aimed in part at drawing attention to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007. Over 130 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since protests began on March 30.

With Israel focused on rising tensions along its northern border in its efforts to prevent Iran from establishing a permanent military foothold in post-war Syria, it has been wary of escalating violence in Gaza.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also come under pressure to act from southern Israeli communities that have once again found themselves under rocket fire from Gaza in addition to contending with the daily field fires. Netanyahu vowed on Saturday that Israel would continue to strike as long as necessary. His Cabinet was convening on Sunday to discuss the situation.

Hamas, meanwhile, has been trying to break out of its isolation and spotlight the hardships of the impoverished strip without invoking the full wrath of Israel.

US ambassador to Qatar steps down after posting critical tweets about Donald Trump

Ms. Smith ho was appointed as the head diplomat in Doha by former President Barack Obama three years ago.

The US ambassador to Qatar has stepped down after posting critical tweets about Donald Trump’s administration after he fired FBI Director James Comey.

Dana Shell Smith announced the move a week after several Gulf states cut diplomatic ties with the monarchy in Doha, citing concerns over their financial ties to Islamist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, The Maldives, United Arab Emirates, Libya, and Bahrain won praise from Mr Trump for coordinating the anti-Qatari effort.

The President claimed foreign leaders had singled the country out for funding “radical ideology”, prompting criticism over his failure to address similar allegations levelled at his Saudi allies.

Ms Smith, a long-standing member of the US foreign service, has not indicated whether the ongoing crisis or the Trump administration played any part in her move, which the US State Department insists is “part of the normal rotation of career diplomats throughout the world”.

However when Mr Comey was fired on 9 May she tweeted: “Increasingly difficult to wake up overseas to news from home, knowing I will spend today explaining our democracy and institutions.

“Diplomats explain & defend our political system.Can be tough when partisan acrimony so high, but there is still no greater country. #USA.”

Ms Smith – who was appointed as the head diplomat in Doha by former President Barack Obama three years ago – has since tweeted that “Qatar is a strong partner in combating terrorist financing”, contradicting the US President’s public claims that the country is “a funder of terrorism at a very high level”.

Egypt has long thought Qatar’s support of Islamist groups Muslim Brotherhood was dangerous for their country.

Saudi Arabia also re-ignited tensions over Doha’s alleged support for Iran, which they claim could act to destabilise the region.

Last week Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asked that the nations in the anti-Qatari effort “ease the blockade against Qatar” and requested that Doha be “responsive” to its neighbours’ concerns over terror financing.

However, just hours later Mr Trump applauded the coalition and raised the possibility that the cutting of ties was due to his urging that Middle East countries more effectively address financing terrorists during his Riyadh trip.

Ms Smith re-tweeted Mr Tillerson’s comments but not the President’s tweets.

The US agreed to sell Qatar $12bn (£9.4bn)-worth of fighter jets just days after President Trump accused the country of being a sponsor of terrorism.

The deal was signed off by the US Defence Ministry and reportedly included 36 F-15 combat aircraft.

Two days before she left her job Ms Smith retweeted a post by Meshal Hamad al-Thani‏, Qatar’s ambassador to the US, which said the deal would create 60,000 new jobs in 42 states.

The Pentagon claimed the sale would increase security cooperation between the US and Qatar.

Qatar remains the home of some 10,000 American troops at a major US military base. So far, the dispute between Doha and nations led by Saudi Arabia has yet to shake that partnership, though cracks are showing in the responses from the US administration.

Trouble – Syria’s Assad rejects Trump’s call for ‘safe zones’

IS claims ‘soldier’ behind Berlin truck attack

A total of 12 people were killed and 50 injured after a truck was driven into crowds of revellers at a Christmas market in Berlin last night

Beirut (AFP) – A “soldier” of the Islamic State group carried out a truck attack that killed 12 people at a Berlin Christmas market, a news agency linked to the jihadists said Tuesday.

“A soldier of the Islamic State carried out the Berlin operation in response to appeals to target citizens of coalition countries,” the IS-linked Amaq news agency said in a statement posted online.

The statement did not identify the attacker.

The truck was rammed into shoppers at the Christmas market in Berlin on Monday night, killing 12 people and wounding dozens more in what German Chancellor Angela Merkel said was a likely “terrorist” attack.

Police arrested a Pakistani asylum-seeker soon after the attack but released him on Tuesday for lack of evidence, leaving investigators to pursue their hunt for the real perpetrator.

While Germany has so far been spared the devastating jihadist carnage that has hit neighbouring France and Belgium, it has suffered a spate of attacks this year.

In some cases, the assaults have been claimed by IS and carried out by asylum seekers.

On July 18, a 17-year-old asylum-seeker wielding an axe and a knife attacked passengers on a Bavarian train, injuring five people, before being shot dead by police.

The IS group released a video purportedly featuring the attacker announcing he would carry out an “operation” in Germany, and presenting himself as a “soldier of the caliphate”.

A US-led military coalition that includes Germany has been carrying out air strikes against IS positions in Iraq and Syria since 2014.

Twin blasts near Istanbul soccer stadium kill 29 , wound 166

Police cordoned off the area as smoke rose from behind the stadium and ambulances began ferrying the wounded to hospitals. Glass from the blown-out windows of nearby buildings littered the pavement.
Police cordoned off the area as smoke rose from behind the stadium and ambulances began ferrying the wounded to hospitals. Glass from the blown-out windows of nearby buildings littered the pavement.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Twin attacks by a suicide bomber and a car bomber near an Istanbul soccer stadium Saturday night killed 29 people and wounded 166 others in the latest large-scale assault to traumatize a nation confronting an array of security threats.

The bombs targeted police officers, killing 27 of them along with two civilians, Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters early Sunday. He added that 10 people had been arrested in connection with the “terrorist attack.”

The civilian death toll was lower because fans had already left the newly built Vodafone Arena Stadium after the soccer match when the blasts occurred. Witnesses also heard gunfire after the explosions.

“We have once again witnessed tonight in Istanbul the ugly face of terror which tramples on every value and decency,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement.

The first bomb went off just outside the facility known popularly as Besiktas Stadium after the local team and neighborhood. The second blast that came moments later was attributed by authorities to a suicide bomber.

Police cordoned off the area as smoke rose from behind the stadium and ambulances began ferrying the wounded to hospitals. Glass from the blown-out windows of nearby buildings littered the pavement.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. This year, Istanbul has witnessed a spate of attacks attributed by authorities to the Islamic State group or claimed by Kurdish militants. A state of emergency is in force following a failed July 15 coup attempt.

Soylu acknowledged the country was struggling against “many elements” trying to compromise its fight against terrorism.

Turkey is a partner in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State and its armed forces are active in neighboring Syria and Iraq. It is also facing a renewed conflict with an outlawed Kurdish movement in the southeast.

Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Washington condemns the attack in “the strongest terms.” “We stand together with Turkey, our NATO Ally, against all terrorists who threaten Turkey, the United States, and global peace and stability,” Price said in a statement.

A  taxi driver at the site of the Istanbul bombings said their force made him hit his head on the taximeter and that his ears were still ringing from the blasts and screaming that followed.

“Amid the screams I heard an officer saying ‘do not shout! Do not make them (the perpetrators) be satisfied,” said Ismail Coskun.

The first and larger explosion took place about 7:30 p.m. GMT after the home team Besiktas beat visitor Bursaspor 2-1 in the Turkish Super League. Erdogan said the timing of the attack aimed to maximize the loss of life and vowed the nation would overcome terrorism.

Soylu said the first explosion was caused by a passing vehicle that detonated in an area where police special forces were located at the stadium exit right after the match. A riot police bus appears to have been the target.

Kurdish militants often target security forces while Islamic State-linked attacks have targeted tourists and the broader public.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said a person who had been stopped in the nearby Macka Park committed suicide by triggering explosives.

Investigators, including Istanbul Police Chief Mustafa Caliskan, were quickly on the scene. Forensic experts in white uniforms scoured the vicinity of the stadium and the vast park where the suicide bombing took place.

The Besiktas sports club “strongly condemned” the attack and said an employee of one of its stores was among the fatalities, as well as a member of its congress who was also responsible for security at the stadium.

Bursaspor reported that none of the wounded were fans and issued a statement wishing “a speedy recovery to our wounded citizens.”

Health Minister Recep Akdag said six of the wounded remained in intensive care, with three of them in critical condition. Aleksander Ceferin, president of European soccer’s governing body UEFA, and European Union Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, also made statements condemning the attack.

“Violence has no place in a democratic society,” Hahn wrote on Twitter. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini expressed the bloc’s “solidarity with Turkish citizens'”

The U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul, meanwhile, urged its citizens to avoid the area which is also home to a Ritz Carlton hotel.

Turkey’s radio and television board issued a temporary coverage ban citing national security concerns. It said “to avoid broadcasts that can result in public fear, panic or chaos, or that will serve the aims of terrorist organizations.”

Let women drive, Saudi prince urges his country

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal  is an unusually forthright member of Saudi Arabia's extensive royal family.
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is an unusually forthright member of Saudi Arabia’s extensive royal family.

Riyadh (AFP) – An outspoken billionaire Saudi prince has called for an “urgent” end to his country’s ban on women driving, saying it is a matter not just of rights but of economic necessity.

“Stop the debate: Time for women to drive,” Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said on his official Twitter account.

Alwaleed is an unusually forthright member of Saudi Arabia’s extensive royal family.

He holds no political posts but chairs Kingdom Holding Co., which has interests including in US banking giant Citigroup and the Euro Disney theme park.

He is a longtime advocate of women’s rights in the conservative Islamic kingdom, which has some of the world’s tightest restrictions on women and is the only country where they are not allowed to drive.

In conjunction with his short tweet, Alwaleed’s office issued an uncharacteristically long statement late Tuesday outlining his reasons for supporting an end to the ban.

“Preventing a woman from driving a car is today an issue of rights similar to the one that forbade her from receiving an education or having an independent identity,” Alwaleed said.

“They are all unjust acts by a traditional society, far more restrictive than what is lawfully allowed by the precepts of religion.”

He also detailed the “economic costs” of women having to rely on foreign private drivers or taxis, since public transit is not a viable alternative in the kingdom.

Using foreign drivers drains billions of dollars from the Saudi economy, Alwaleed said.

He calculated that families spend an average of 3,800 riyals ($1,000/940 euros) a month on a driver, money which otherwise could help household incomes at a time when many are making do with less.

Even if their husbands can take time out to transport the women, that requires temporarily leaving the office and “undermines the productivity of the workforce,” Alwaleed said.

“Having women drive has become an urgent social demand predicated upon current economic circumstances.”

The prince said he is making his call on behalf of those with “limited means”.

Activists say women’s driving is not technically illegal but that the ban is linked to tradition and custom.

Some women have challenged the prohibition by getting behind the wheel and posting images of themselves online.

A slow expansion of women’s rights began under the late king Abdullah, who in 2013 named them to the Shura Council which advises cabinet.

Abdullah also announced that women could for the first time vote and run in municipal elections, which were held last December.

These and other decisions were initially opposed by “certain elements” in Saudi society but soon became accepted, Alwaleed said, calling for “a similarly decisive” political act.

In April, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said change cannot be forced, and “it is up to Saudi society.”

In Alwaleed’s view, however, “what cannot be allowed is to have one segment imposing its preferences on the rest of society.”

Sahar Hassan Nasief, a women’s rights activist in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, said the appeal from such an influential figure could help to bring about change.

“Everybody’s talking about him,” she told AFP. “I think his comments gave us a lot of hope.”

Iran Olympic protest: Woman asked to take down sign

A female Iranian activist who held a protest banner during a volleyball match at the Rio Olympics was asked to take it down and leave by security staff.

Darya Safai’s sign read: “Let Iranian women enter their stadiums.”

Women have generally been banned or restricted from attending all-male sports events in Iran since shortly after the Islamic revolution in 1979.

The International Olympic Committee bans political statements at the games.

After she refused to leave, security staff abandoned their attempt to remove her and she carried on holding up the banner for the rest of the game. Ms Safai says she plans to attend all of Iran’s volleyball matches. The next one is on Monday.

Ms Safai, who was born in Iran but lives in Belgium, held her protest on Saturday at a men’s preliminary volleyball match between Egypt and Iran.

Ms Safai said everyone should have the right to attend a sports game and cheer their national team
Ms Safai said everyone should have the right to attend a sports game and cheer their national team

Although she seemed to smile throughout that protest, Ms Safai did at one point burst into tears when security staff came to try to remove her.

She said to them: “I am so sorry. What I am fighting for is for the right for Iranian women to be at matches. It is my right to be here. It is the basic right of Iranian women.”

She said she cried because “it hurts to explain again and again that this peaceful action is not a political message, but a positive message of peace and human rights”.

“I kept the banner up for the whole length of the match,” she told the BBC News website. “My hands were shivering from holding the banner. But I kept it until the end.”

Not everyone was supportive – one Iranian fan sitting behind her at the match yelled at her, she said.

Women’s voice

Ms Safai, has lived in Belgium since 2000, after being arrested in Iran in 1999 and put in prison for taking part in anti-government demonstrations.

She has been staging sports protests since 2014.

“I love volleyball, football, because I love our national team. We want to enjoy [the team], men and women. I want to cheer my national team, it is my right and that of all Iranian women whose voice is muted.

“Where better than the Olympic Games to bring people together?”

She says her protest is “to let the Olympic committee know that they have an important mission to let Iranian women enter the stadiums”.

“They have a lot of power in the world of sports and I hope they will use it to fight gender discrimination. That’s what the spirit of the Olympic Games is,” she said.

Since 2012, the Iranian government has banned women from attending volleyball tournaments as the sport became increasingly popular in Iran with both sexes.

It has arrested women for trying to enter stadiums, human rights groups say.

The child bride who still haunts me

Balki Souley, 14, in the village of Kwassaw, Niger, on June 17, 2012. Two days earlier, doctors said at the time,  she lost her baby because of her age and the fact that she had eaten very little during her pregnancy because of Niger's hunger crisis.  (Sudarsan Raghavan/The Washington Post)
Balki Souley, 14, in the village of Kwassaw, Niger, on June 17, 2012. Two days earlier, doctors said at the time, she lost her baby because of her age and the fact that she had eaten very little during her pregnancy because of Niger’s hunger crisis. (Sudarsan Raghavan/The Washington Post)

I met Fayrouz Ahmed Haider  in a grim refugee camp in Yemen. Just 11 years old, she was already married. She reminded me of someone else: a girl I had met thousands of miles away in the West African nation of Niger.

Her name was Balki Souley. Like Fayrouz, she had also been married off as a child.

I met Balki in the summer of 2012. She had just lost her son during childbirth, and her body was frail, so weakened by hunger, that she nearly died herself. Balki was 14 then. She was married at 12.

At the time, Balki’s father was struggling to scrape together enough money to take care of his 15-member family. There wasn’t nearly enough to feed them.

“Sometimes we had food, sometimes we didn’t eat,” he said. “Whenever we had leftovers, we gave them to Balki. If her hunger wasn’t satisfied, there’s nothing we could do.”

Then, as it is the case now, Niger has the world’s highest rate of child marriage. Back then, a hunger crisis was affecting millions of people across the Sahel region. Humanitarian agencies were concerned that more and more desperate parents would marry off their daughters for the dowries they fetch to ensure their family’s survival.

In Yemen, the civil war is doing just that.

11-year-old Fayrouz Ahmed Haider. Her father married her to a 25-year-old man to help pay for her mother's hospital bills. (Sudarsan Raghavan/The Washington Post)
11-year-old Fayrouz Ahmed Haider. Her father married her to a 25-year-old man to help pay for her mother’s hospital bills.
(Sudarsan Raghavan/The Washington Post)

In Balki, I saw Fayrouz’s potential future. Fayrouz was married off to a 25-year-old man, and his dowry was used for medical treatment for her mother and to pay off debts. But when the man tried to have sex with her, Fayrouz ran away. But she intends to go back to her husband, not least because her struggling family needs the rest of the dowry, which will be paid only when she returns.

“He calls me every day,” Fayrouz told me, referring to her husband. “He asks me when I’ll come back.”

“I tell him I won’t come back until I am old enough,” she continued.

When I asked when that will be, Fayrouz replied:

“After a year of two, I will go back to him.”

That would make her around the same age when Balki became pregnant and subsequently lost her child.

x Close

Like Us On Facebook