New York Post

ISIS wives are fed up

Jihadi-divorce spike

- By YARON STEINBUCH

’Til death cult do us part. Wives of ISIS militants are kicking their husbands to the curb en masse as the terror group is driven out of Iraq and Syria — and as being married to a deadbeat jihadi is becoming more shameful than being a divorcee, according to a new report.

“Being the wife of a terrorist is not honoring me or my family and it is not going to honor my kids,” Umaima, 41, told NBC News of her husband of 13 years.

There has been a huge spike in divorce requests in the area as ISIS loses its grip on the area — especially in Sunni Muslim regions where the group was especially powerful, Iraqi Deputy Justice Minister Hussein Jassem told NBC.

Umaima says she met her husband, Awad, when he was a mechanic, but he turned to terror after Iraqi security forces tortured his brother to death.

“My husband got mad and he swore he would take revenge on his brother’s killers,” Umaima recalled from Fallujah, Iraq. “I was and still am disappoint­ed because I married a man who didn’t appreciate his life and decided to join a terrorist group instead of taking care of his family.”

Of her three kids, ages 6 to 12, she said, “I will try to be their father as well.”

Awad has been arrested and faces life in jail or a death sentence if convicted.

Conservati­ve Sunni Muslim communitie­s frown at divorce, but it is accepted by many in Iraq and is not considered a sin under Islam.

Meanwhile, some unhappy ISIS brides don’t even know where their good-fornothing spouses are.

Shaima’a, 26, says her husband, Abdulqader, has been missing since Iraqi forces liberated their town of Heet, northwest of Baghdad, in 2016.

When they tied the knot in 2013, he owned a supermarke­t, but was seduced by ISIS.

He later tried to leave the terror group, Shaima’a said, “but he couldn’t do that because they would kill him.”

And now that he’s on the lam, Shaima’a admitted she would remarry him if she had the chance.

“I don’t want to live the rest of my life as a wife without a husband,” she said.

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