People have been flocking to join ISIS. A file picture of an ISIS training camp
People have been flocking to join ISIS. A file picture of an ISIS training camp/Reuters Reuters

Sex slavery is rampant among the Islamic State Fighters in Syria. Thousands of Iraqi women are being kept as sex slaves in various brothels and are managed by a 'police force' of British women jihadis, reported Daily Mail UK. As many as 3,000 women and girls are under IS captivity with a majority of them from the Yazidi tribe in northern Iraq. A report from MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institution) also said ISIS is keeping hundreds of Yazidi women, as sex slaves.

Barbaric Interpretations

The paper reported that the Jihadi women justify the militants for using captive women with their barbaric interpretations of the Islamic faith. They proffer the explanation that militants are justified in using any woman, if she is a non-Muslim.

These British female jihadis are running their rule under the al-Khanssaa brigade. They have the power to punish any woman for 'un-Islamic' behaviour as the trusted managers of the brothels for ISIS fighters. The report describes the Sharia police as bizarre and perverse.

Al-Khanssaa Women Brigade

The al-Khanssaa brigade is an all female- militia with base in Raqqa, Syria. Its central figure is Aqsa Mahmood, aged 20. She hails from Glasgow, and left the UK last year. Aqsa Mahmood wanted to be a doctor but embraced the life of a jihadi with a name Umm Layth, used mostly in social network sites. The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) says Umm Layth, Umm Haritha, Umm Ubaydiah and Umm Waqqas are all from Britain with suppressed identities.

The Daily Mail reports the band of young women leaving their families in Britain to join the jihad cause in Syria, is up. A Muslim convert Sally Jones, 45 from Chatham, Kent is more interesting. Her online rants are shocking. She is known for her outburst that she wanted to behead Christians with a 'blunt knife'.

Sasha Havlicek, founder of the London-based Institute of Strategic Dialogue, told The Washington Post that western women are an important part of the Islamic State's strategy. They want to show that the group stands for more than violence and the mission is constructing an ideal Islamic state.