Ugbad and Rahma Sadiq

Ugbad and Rahma were born in Somaliland. They came from a moderate Muslim family and have three brothers.^[5][6] In 1997, their father traveled to Norway and applied for asylum. He was denied asylum but allowed to remain in Norway, work and apply for permanent residency. The rest of the family followed him to Norway after he got his residence permit. They all became Norwegian citizens.^[7]

In the year before they left, the sisters’ parents noticed they had become more religious: they began praying and fasting fervently, had stopped wearing makeup, jewelry and perfume and had started wearing the abaya, hijab and niqab. They joined Islam Net, an Islamist organization with a chapter at Oslo University College, and became very involved in it, and they also attended Quran school. Both girls stopped participating in physical education in school, saying their religion did not permit it because they might have physical contact with boys. They asked their parents for permission to return to Somaliland to live with their grandparents, as they felt they could not live the way they wanted to in Norway, but their parents told them they should finish their education first.^[7]

On October 17, 2013, Ugbad and Rahma packed their school bags, left home in the morning and never returned. They sent their father an email saying they were going to Syria to help suffering Muslims.^[1]

Ugbad and Rahma’s father traveled to Syria to try to get them to return to Norway, and he was allowed to meet Ugbad, but she had already married and refused to go home.^[7] Their father was subsequently imprisoned by ISIL and tortured as a suspected spy before being released and allowed to leave ISIL territory and return home.^[8]

While in Syria, both teenagers married foreign ISIL fighters.^[9] Ugbad’s husband was Hisham Hussein Ahmed, an Eritrean-Norwegian she had known from back home who had traveled to Syria in December 2012.^[7] Rahma’s husband was Imran Nur Hersi, a British citizen who traveled to Syria in August 2013.^[10]

The sisters had three children between them by their ISIL husbands. Both sisters attended Sharia courses offered by ISIL, and Ugbad attended Quran school and language training under ISIL and taught English.^[6]

After the fall of ISIL, in March 2019, the sisters surrendered to Kurdish forces and were placed in the Al-Hawl refugee camp. By then their husbands were dead. Their family had not heard from them in years by that point and thought they might be dead. The sisters were later moved to the Al-Roj refugee camp. Witnesses told NRK that both women were part of a group of extremists in the camps who attacked and beat women who removed their gloves, hijab and face covering.^[4]

In March 2023, Ugbad and Rahma returned to Norway with their three daughters. They were arrested upon arrival.^[11]

At their trial, the sisters denied having traveled to Syria with the intent to join ISIL and stated they intended to do aid work with the civilian population there, but found themselves unable to leave Syria once they'd arrived.^[12] They denied having ever supported ISIL, argued they had been victims of human trafficking and requested a full acquittal.^[13][14]

Both sisters were convicted of terrorism charges.^[15] Ugbad was sentenced to four years in prison, and Rahma to two years with one year suspended.^[16] When they were sentenced, the judge stressed that they had spoken positively about life in ISIL and had promoted ISIL's way of life even after the fall of the ISIL caliphate, in Al-Hawl.^[3]

• Shamima Begum – British-born woman who joined the IS (born 1999)
• Aqsa Mahmood – Scottish woman who joined ISIL (1993–2019)
• Sharmeena Begum – Missing British jihadist (born 1999)
• Tareena Shakil – Former English terrorist
• Sahra Ali Mehenni
• Nora el-Bahty
• Ahmed, Zahra and Salma Halane