Swedish Teen Joined ISIS in Iraq, But Didn't Stay Because it Was 'Really Hard'

A Swedish teenager who joined the Islamic State in Iraq says that life was "really hard" during interviews after her rescue.

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Complex Original

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A teenage girl from Sweden is describing what happened when she traveled to Iraq and joined the Islamic State, only to realize that life there was "really hard" and change her mind. The girl, Marlin Stivani Nivarlain, spoke to reporters in English after she was rescued from the terror group by Iraqi-Kurdish anti-terrorist forces, The Washington Post reports. 

Nivarlain, traveled to the city of Mosul back in May with her boyfriend, who she says tricked her into linking up with ISIS because she didn't understand what was happening.

"First it was good together, but then he started to look at ISIS videos and speak about them and stuff like that," the girl says in a video released by Reuters. "Then he said he wanted to go to ISIS, and I said, 'Okay, no problem,' because I did not know what ISIS meant or what Islam was or nothing."

Nivarlain goes on to describe that after her boyfriend joined ISIS, the group gave them a house to live in, but there was no electricity or running water, and they didn't have any money (despite ISIS being the wealthiest terror group in the world). 

"It was really hard life," she said.

CSMonitor reports that the Nivarlain, who was 15 at the time, married her 19-year-old boyfriend after leaving a Foster home in Sweden before the couple left for Iraq. ISIS, however, did not recognize the marriage and later forced Nivarlain to live separately from her husband. While she was living with a group of women, one of them gave her a cell phone that she used to call her mother and say she wanted to go home. Not long after that, the girl was rescued by Kurdish forces. 

It's not the first time we've heard about a teenaged Swedish girl leaving home to link up with ISIS. Aqsa Mahmood became infamous after leaving Sweden to become a bride for an ISIS fighter, then running a Tumblr blog dedicated to convincing other girls to join.

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