Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

by Joby Warrick

The outlines of the woman’s unhappy life emerged slowly, between bouts of quiet sobbing. Rishawi came from the volatile heartland of Iraq’s Sunni tribal region, the sister of two men who had joined Zarqawi’s insurgent movement in the early weeks of the American occupation. One of her brothers had become a midlevel officer with AQI before being killed by U.S. troops in the town of Fallujah. The Americans had also killed a second brother and a brother-in-law. The woman had been distraught over their deaths, and she felt a tug of obligation: according to tribal custom, Sunni Iraqis are obliged to avenge the killings of family members. The fall of 2005 brought a painful anniversary—one year since the first brother’s death—along with the news of the first use of women as suicide bombers in the Iraqi capital. The authorities had been taken by surprise; females were usually waved through security cordons, and their loose-fitting abayas, together with Iraqi taboos against searching women, made it easy to conceal explosives.