1039: Tareena Shakil | An ISIS Recruit’s Journey and Escape Part One

1039: Tareena Shakil | An ISIS Recruit's Journey and Escape Part One

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[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Special thanks to Heineken zero zero for sponsoring this episode of the Jordan Harbinger Show. Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger show.

[00:00:07] Tareena Shakil: As mad as this sounds, there will probably be loads of things that I say that sound mad when I was in Syria. My God war zone, but only the best Muslims make it here.

Yes, brilliant. I mean, the grooming process took like six weeks. It wasn't long at all, but at the same time, my God, what have I done on

[00:00:27] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to the show, I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show. We decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks.

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Today on the show, Tarina Shaquille became the first British woman to be jailed for joining isis. What an honor. Hey, I gotta admit, I went into this just expecting to talk to the dumbest person alive. And honestly, I didn't really get that vibe from her. She was strangely relatable, candid, very open. Um, again, you know, I was, I found it surprising.

It's really easy to hate on somebody like this and say, this is a total idiot who's absolutely brain dead. She was just not what I expected at all. And her accent is great. I've heard Brits hate the Birmingham accent, though. Uh, I found a little bit charming and endearing. Well, I found her story slightly more sympathetic than I thought.

And don't get me wrong, I think we're all on the same page that this was one of the dumbest things you could do. And the way she did it was even dumber. But again, I, I beg you to go into this one with an open mind and see if you can put yourself even slight, even one foot, even one little toy. In her shoes back at that age.

And uh, yeah, you might have a slightly different opinion coming out than you did going in. Here we go with Tarina Shaquille.

So you ran away from your life in the UK and you joined isis. London. Traffic is bad, but what was so horrible that you'd run off and join ISIS is what I'm, I mean now

[00:02:32] Tareena Shakil: I know. I guess looking back that you've got a real big point there. I think the main thing to point out is that at the time when the grooming, because I was groomed on the internet.

Yeah. I didn't just wake up one day and decide I'm gonna go and live there. I don't think anybody would do that. Right. There is a process of grooming and a lot of people that are over there now or have been there, went through that process. With regards to grooming it, not just anybody can be like, maybe it wouldn't work on you.

Yeah. Maybe a person has to be quite vulnerable. Maybe. Let's hope. And I had been going through and was going through really bad domestic violence at the time. Mm-Hmm. And my marriage was breaking down. It was on, it was off. It was, I was just really, really in a bad place. My ex-husband had gone like on holiday to his home country and yeah.

Let's

[00:03:13] Jordan Harbinger: actually back up a little bit 'cause I, I would like to unpack some of this Please. And I don't want to, I don't wanna put the cart before the horse. I don't know if people say that here. Tell me about growing up. 'cause it seems like you had a fairly normal Yeah. Spice Girls infused childhood.

[00:03:24] Tareena Shakil: Yeah.

So growing up we had normal childhood. There were like probably bickerings in the house. Nothing majorly out of the ordinary. I had a really normal upbringing, loving the spy skills, and I'm from a Muslim family, but we were not raised strict at all. So yeah, I guess my upbringing was just normal with whatever normal means.

Yeah. Absolutely. Muslim kind of

[00:03:45] Jordan Harbinger: thing. Like you didn't have your hair covered and all. No, no,

[00:03:47] Tareena Shakil: no. None of that. I'm not from a family that really am, I don't think imposes is the right word, but that would be my choice. Mm-Hmm. No one would ever suggest it from the family, if that makes sense. Sure. Yeah. So we, we were pretty free actually, the way we were raised, and I'm from a mixed background as well.

So half of my family are Christian, half of them are Muslim. I see. So my mom is a revert to Islam. She wasn't always a Muslim. I think that's another reason why we were raised. So I don't know, in a different kind of way really. Mm-Hmm. My mom, she's a revert and half of my family are Christian. So I think that's the reason for her.

I get

[00:04:16] Jordan Harbinger: it. I get it. We're Christmas tree Jews. Yeah.

[00:04:18] Tareena Shakil: Well, so, oh really?

[00:04:19] Jordan Harbinger: It's like, Hey, you're Jewish, I guess. What are you doing for Christmas, dude? You said you were Jew. Ah, I don't really even know what that means. Like ethnically this, but Christmas tree, it's cheaper. It's easiers. One day we

[00:04:29] Tareena Shakil: always used to have a Christmas tree as well.

That's funny. As a child, we tree always have a Christmas tree lit tree's. A new,

[00:04:35] Jordan Harbinger: that's a new one. So you get married, but this guy is not the same type of background. I, I'm guessing

[00:04:41] Tareena Shakil: it's not that he was strict Muslim either. He was just, he had problems with addictions. He was incredibly violent. Mm-Hmm. And our problems were around that.

[00:04:50] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. So

[00:04:50] Tareena Shakil: when I met him, I was at university studying to be a doctor. Like I had great ambitions, intelligent girls. There's nothing I couldn't do. Springing my step, all of them kind of things.

[00:04:59] Clip: Mm-Hmm.

[00:05:00] Tareena Shakil: Met this man. And that's just when it all went downhill really. Because we were the polar opposites. I had a thirst for life.

Mm-Hmm. I want to be a doctor. I want to travel the world. I want to do all of that. Where he's like fighting addiction and he's. It wasn't as bad when we first met each other. Mm-Hmm. Like drinking and then it just got a really, really worse. It got worse as your relationship progressed. Absolutely. We were just polar opposites.

But I was quite younger than him. I think when I met him I was like 20. Oh wow. He was like 28, 29. So it's quite a big age gap when you think just fresh from being a teenager, he's pushing 30. So it's, I know that's still young, but you know mentally

[00:05:32] Jordan Harbinger: well. But if you think about it, yeah. He was eight years older than you.

Yeah. And eight years before your current, that age, at that time you would've been 12 a

[00:05:40] Tareena Shakil: child. Yeah. So like, so a child. Really. Yeah. Right.

[00:05:42] Jordan Harbinger: It's a little, yeah.

[00:05:43] Tareena Shakil: And I dunno, I think I was maybe a bit mature back then, or, you know, everyone's a mature 20,

[00:05:47] Jordan Harbinger: I'll I'll side with you on that one. So

[00:05:49] Tareena Shakil: we were really different in that sense.

And I ended up dropping out of uni because I just couldn't do it with the violence that I was going through. Sure. Because. If you think about it, training to be a doctor, it's hard work. Mm-Hmm. It requires attention focused dedication. And you know, when you've been up all night fighting and like you just don't want to be, I couldn't focus, so I dropped out of university and then my life became just staying in the house doing nothing.

And when I say nothing, I mean I had no life. I had no friends. I wasn't allowed friends. At one point I didn't even have a phone because I wasn't allowed a phone. Oh man. Yeah. I used to go to the phone box opposite where we lived to ring my mom. It got really, really

[00:06:26] Jordan Harbinger: like a payphone When you put a card in?

[00:06:27] Tareena Shakil: Yeah, a payphone. Well, it was money at the time. I don't think they work like that in England anymore. I haven't

[00:06:31] Jordan Harbinger: even seen a payphone in the United States. A working one, I should say for like a decade. I think they work in

[00:06:36] Tareena Shakil: England, but back then they did. I would sporadically ring my mom like every few days and I remember speaking to my mom and she was like, Tarina, I'm really worried about you.

Yeah. I watched the news and. They found a woman dead in the flat in Birmingham and she was like, I thought it was you. Oh, I was just waiting to hear for your call. So things got really bad. Yeah. That's just to give you an idea of how bad things were.

[00:06:54] Jordan Harbinger: That's when your mom is wondering Yes. If you're the dead girl who turned up.

Yeah, that's, I'm surprised they didn't come and get you.

[00:07:02] Tareena Shakil: Well. Right. My dad would have, but we had kept a lot of things away from my dad. I was all hearted for this man. I would've died for this man. I loved him so much. You might

[00:07:12] Jordan Harbinger: have almost done that. I

[00:07:12] Tareena Shakil: was obsessed with him. I don't know why I cannot think now.

Being out of that circle all these years later, having gone through everything, I can't think of why I was besotted with him. Smitten,

[00:07:24] Jordan Harbinger: what a good word. Absolutely. Yeah. So never heard that.

[00:07:27] Tareena Shakil: That's what led to my downfall, really. That's what led to the destruction was the way that I loved him. Really?

[00:07:32] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Look, I think a lot of people who've been victims of violence, domestic violence can probably relate to that. It's almost like cult vibes, like there's brainwashing involved. Yeah. Because people who are in their right mind at the time don't stick around when somebody beats them up, when they get home drunk after work or whatever the situation is.

Yeah. Nobody sticks around for that unless there's coercive. Yeah. Stuff going on. So you dropped out of university, but also you started, I don't wanna say you became more Muslim, because that's not really the case. Yeah. He enforced. More conservative ways of life on you? Is that a good way to put it? Yes. I

[00:08:04] Tareena Shakil: guess that would be fair to say.

So pre-marriage, I didn't wear, um, hijab, which is the headscarf, the Muslim headscarf that we would wear, that we should wear. That was, he didn't force me, but he was like, we're married now. You're a married woman, you should probably cover your hair. Mm-Hmm. So I did. Mm-Hmm. You know, there will have been a part of me that wanted to as well, but it was more because I was married.

Mm-Hmm. If that makes sense. Yeah. So, yeah, I started covering my head. It wasn't that I started focusing more on the religion at that point. That happened a year or two later. I just used to probably dress like that and the rules that he had on me, I couldn't go out with my friends or I couldn't just hang out or anything like that.

So it was, and that's not necessarily an Islamic thing, but it was, it's a

[00:08:43] Jordan Harbinger: possessive guy thing. A

[00:08:44] Tareena Shakil: possessive guy thing. And. That's where we were. Mm-Hmm. Really? That's how my life changed when I married him.

[00:08:49] Jordan Harbinger: Is it safe to say you were fighting all the time with this guy as well?

[00:08:52] Tareena Shakil: Yeah. Oh my God. Every day.

Every day. I didn't work for a while because I was never allowed to, but I was depressed. Depressed in that house. No phone, no friends, nothing that I could do. And I remember once just thinking, right, I'm gonna get a job 'cause this is not me. Mm-Hmm. I'm ambitious, I'm intelligent. I need to be doing something.

So I just said to him one day, I was like, look, I'm gonna look for a job. And he was like. Whatever. Found a job as a rehabilitation support worker for people who've got acquired brain injuries. Brilliant. I could have progressed majorly, I could have gone on to be a mental health nurse. Mm-Hmm. I couldn't keep the job.

I went to work with a black eye. I went to work with my arm, caught open gashed, like they had to like wrap my arm up and one day the owner. She called me and she was like, Tarina, I can imagine what's going on. I just want you to know that we're here for you and it's not right. And, you know, she tried to do the motherly thing Sure.

And tried to help me out. But, you know, I never left. I, I just, I couldn't continue in that job. Mm-Hmm. It's a very demanding job that people are not, well, they've got acquired brain injuries. I'm turning up every day with a thick lip. It's not fair on them either to see me like that. So I just said, look, I physically can't do it.

I mentally can't do it. I was driving to work and the police would be ringing me because the neighbors have rang them saying, where are you, miss Shaquille? We've arrested your husband. And I'm like, oh yeah, I'm just on the way to work. You know, leading. Oh, that's so of so crazy. Of breathe Vander camp. Kind of double life kind of thing.

Wow. Oh, I'm just parking up to go into work right now, but I don't want to. Oh. But when you finish work, you need to come and give a statement. I was at war in my head. I couldn't. Wow. So I, I left that job as well.

[00:10:23] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. That's a crazy way to live. Like your life is insane at this point. I. You have your facade normalcy.

Very insane. Yeah. And underneath that, you're going to the police station to give a statement about your husband having beat you up the night before. Absolutely. That's crazy to hear.

[00:10:35] Tareena Shakil: I was pretty much li living a double life in front of family. I never wanted them to know like what was going on.

Especially my dad because my dad would've

[00:10:42] Jordan Harbinger: killed the guy. Yeah, he would've, yeah. Done

[00:10:44] Tareena Shakil: whatever he had to do, right? Mm-Hmm. So there's, yes, I'm okay. Yes. But why haven't you got a phone? Oh, I just don't want a phone. Oh, you've lost a lot of weight. Are you sure you're not anorexic? No, I'm fine. I just don't eat for three days 'cause I can't, 'cause I'm sick, but I can't say that to them.

So it, I think the pressure just got too much to me. I couldn't work. I just became a hermit. Yeah. Just the best place for me was at home. Yeah. Wasting away in that moment. So,

[00:11:06] Jordan Harbinger: and in 2014, correct me if I get my timeline wrong, it seems like the marriage, does it end in 2014 or he just decides he's going to Yemen?

For some reason.

[00:11:15] Tareena Shakil: So basically I had a child, right? Mm-Hmm. With him. And I remember saying before I gave birth, look, I'm not putting up with this anymore. I'm not putting a child through that for you will be gone for you. It's not gonna happen. I'm not gonna do that when I drink. I was in a homeless hostel when I was pregnant because he had attacked me whilst pregnant.

It was wild, dangerous. It was very dangerous. So I went to a homeless hostel. They found me a house to live, you know, like pressure from like his mom and everything like that. Oh, come on. You know, you can have a child. You can't be a single mom and, and all of them things. I was scared. I hadn't had a child before, so I was like, right.

Okay.

[00:11:49] Jordan Harbinger: You're 21 at this point? 20?

[00:11:50] Tareena Shakil: No, at this point I was probably like 23, 24. So still very young. Really? Yeah. Allowed him to come back. It got worse. He started to like grab weapons that he had never done before. And I remember, I remember the night everything changed. We used to have two living rooms, the living room where you enter the house and then the back living room.

But then there was a stair that led upstairs, but the a door, so you'd have to go through the door to get upstairs. Okay. Obviously, my child was upstairs sleeping. I let him in because if I didn't, he'd be shouting on the street. We lived in a, in a grove quiet. Mm-Hmm. I'm embarrassed. He shout in all kinds of disgusting things about me, so I just let him in to save the peace.

Oof. And I remember him like in the kitchen. All I could hear was like knives and forks. You know the cutlery drawer?

[00:12:30] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. That's scary. I

[00:12:31] Tareena Shakil: looked at the door and I thought, oh my god, my son's upstairs. So I just pushed with all my mic, the sofa in front of the door. And I remember as I'm doing it, thinking to myself, you will never get back in this house again.

Mm-Hmm. This is the last straw. You won't do this again. You know, the police must have been called, they took him away after that. He had never come back as it were. To say we were on and off probably a little bit. He would probably come in the house for a little bit, but he would never stay overnight. We were finished.

[00:13:00] Clip: Mm-Hmm.

[00:13:00] Tareena Shakil: And all of that. He went to Yemen in, I think it was June or July of 2014. Okay. And then he was like, come with me. Let's try. You know, it'll be different in Yemen. Oh sure. We can start again, Alex with

[00:13:09] Jordan Harbinger: No, yeah. I can imagine women's rights in Yemen are slightly downgraded compared to the UK, I think.

[00:13:15] Tareena Shakil: Yeah. Well I think what he was trying to say was, obviously you can't drink any Yemen, you know, so I won't be the same kind of person kind of thing. I'm sure you still

[00:13:22] Jordan Harbinger: can if you really, really want to. Yeah, I think he was just

[00:13:24] Tareena Shakil: trying to clutch it. He never really ever wanted to let me go. So he was trying to clutch it.

It, thank God

[00:13:29] Jordan Harbinger: you didn't go to Yemen. Oh my God. Well, my dad

[00:13:31] Tareena Shakil: wouldn't let me go as well.

[00:13:32] Jordan Harbinger: Uhhuh. Okay. So my

[00:13:33] Tareena Shakil: dad was like, I, no. You're not going to Yemen. Yeah. Torina. Never. Are you going to Yemen? I don't care.

[00:13:38] Jordan Harbinger: Where's your dad's family originally? So we're

[00:13:40] Tareena Shakil: mixed race. White and Pakistani. Okay. My dad's Pakistani, so he's like, you're not ever going to Yemen.

Side note, my sister is married to someone who's Iraqi and my dad at first was like, you're never going to Iraq, but she went and it was okay. So it's kind things like dad is just really protective life like that anyway. Yeah.

[00:13:57] Jordan Harbinger: Yemen's a little bit. Uh, yeah. Unstable. Even compared to Iraq these days, so,

[00:14:01] Tareena Shakil: so dad was always against that.

I think it was the right thing not to do anyway, just because, uh,

[00:14:06] Jordan Harbinger: well, whatever. Yeah. So

[00:14:07] Tareena Shakil: he went to Yemen and it was originally supposed to be for six weeks. He went with his family and I remember seeing the ticket and the return date. He never came back on the return date. Family did. He never did. So I'm like, oh, hold on.

What's going on here? No one knew when he was coming back and we had, had sporadic conversation Sure. Over the phone. IE are you okay? How's my son? He missed his son's first birthday, all of them things. So yeah, the, the conversation was sporadic and he just basically was like, I've got married again. I'm not coming back.

All of this stuff.

[00:14:35] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, that's a choice.

[00:14:36] Tareena Shakil: Yeah. So I was, he hadn't, it was lies.

[00:14:39] Jordan Harbinger: Oh

[00:14:39] Tareena Shakil: yeah. He was lying. He was like, no, move on with your life. You silly cow. And all these kind of evil stuff that he was saying, I'm never coming back. Silly cow

[00:14:45] Jordan Harbinger: is really a stupid,

[00:14:47] Tareena Shakil: it was worse. Right. Okay. Okay. You're milked that one down, man.

No, he, he went in, he not, he went in, he went in. It wasn't a joke. So like he's in yet now. Right. I need to bring it back. So whilst he's in Yemen, I dunno how to word this. Let's say there was something going on in the Middle East a bit similar to what's happening now. Okay. Right. This is in 2014. And you know, everyone was protesting, fundraising, all of them things.

[00:15:10] Jordan Harbinger: So was this another Gaza thing?

[00:15:12] Tareena Shakil: Another Gaza situation. Okay. Right. In 2014. So I was never allowed on Facebook whilst being married or any social media. Mm-Hmm. So husband's in Yemen and I remember at the time seeing my neighbor and she'd just come back from like a fundraising thing for Gaza and I was like, oh my God, you know, I didn't know about any of these things ever.

And she was like, yeah, it was on Facebook.

[00:15:31] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:15:31] Tareena Shakil: And from there I reactivated Facebook.

[00:15:33] Jordan Harbinger: I see. Yeah.

[00:15:34] Tareena Shakil: And. I started coming across profiles of guys who were dressed all in black Mm-Hmm. And holding like, I don't know, maybe a gun or something like that. So I initially thought that they were in Palestine. So one of them, I sent them a message to be like, look, praying for you, hope you're okay.

Mm-Hmm. Because I know it's a tricky topic at the minute, but we've always kind of stood for Palestine and kind of protested and donated aid and things like that for years. So, you know, I sent him a message and I was like, look, I hope you're okay praying for you. And he was like, um, thank you, but I'm not in Gaza.

I was like, so where are you then? Mm-Hmm. And he said, we're in Syria. I had no idea what was happening in Syria.

[00:16:15] Jordan Harbinger: Right, okay.

[00:16:15] Tareena Shakil: So I was like. Right. What's going on in Syria. And he was literally like, well, you don't know. Knock, knock. You don't Yeah, I'm gonna say who watches the news at like 23, 24 kind of thing.

I mean, you're

[00:16:26] Jordan Harbinger: not wrong, especially if you don't have social media. Nothing's coming into your Feedly, you're watching, I don't know, whatever reality TV shows you can get handle Keeping up with

[00:16:34] Tareena Shakil: Kardashians was obsessed. Yeah. You know, desperate Housewives obsessed.

[00:16:38] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Not a lot of Gaza and ISIS stuff shows up in the Kardashians.

Absolutely. I can imagine. Imagine, absolutely. Yeah.

[00:16:42] Tareena Shakil: I don't think I've ever seen it in there. So, um, the conversation started from there, but why I mentioned that then is because he basically started off by saying, look, we've established the Islamic state. It's Haram for you to live in a country where it's not ruled by Sharia, blah, but I'll get into this greater a bit down the line.

Mm-Hmm. And the conversation started like that, but at the same time I had my ex-husband saying, oh, I'm not coming back. I'm starting a new life here. And as petty as this sounds, mm-Hmm. I'm not ashamed to admit this as a fully grown woman now, literally. A big part of my reasoning for even continuing to talk with that person was Right.

Okay. You can start a new life as well somewhere else. I will also do that. Mm-Hmm. I know how that sounds. My heart stops when I relay that, but that's me being honest.

[00:17:24] Clip: Yeah. I, that's

[00:17:24] Tareena Shakil: my immaturity at that time. Of course that was, I'm destroyed here. Yeah. Because of you. I missed out on loads of life opportunities because of him being a doctor, being an air hostess on Emirate.

My mom's got Australian roots immigrating to Australia, rehabilitation support worker. I am essentially nothing now. I wasn't nothing but like how I had seen it. Like I could be so much and I'm nothing now because of you. Oh, when you go to Yemen and get married. Okay, so is that how this ends? Well, guess what, buddy?

You're not the only one that can go. And they've I know. I know. Yeah. Literally

[00:17:54] Jordan Harbinger: now everybody listening is like, this girl is the dumbest person alive. And however

[00:17:59] Tareena Shakil: I'm a realist. It's, that is exactly what it is. But I'm just trying to explain my train of thought behind it. Yeah. Because how do you get someone who's really westernized raised in England, not from a strict family, to go there that's a hundred miles an hour.

[00:18:13] Jordan Harbinger: It's true. I will say if you'd never really heard much about Syria and you'd never been to a place like Syria.

[00:18:19] Tareena Shakil: Yeah.

[00:18:20] Jordan Harbinger: You really didn't know what you were getting into at that point in time degree. I've never been anywhere

[00:18:26] Tareena Shakil: like that.

[00:18:26] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:18:27] Tareena Shakil: Okay. So you, I started to read things online, speak to this guy, and watch blogs from people who were there.

I had never been anywhere like that, and reading things online is very different to being there. Sure. I remember the first time, and I will never forget it, that I seen that black flag in real life. We were on a bus going from one part of Syria to another. We'll,

[00:18:47] Jordan Harbinger: we'll get there. Yeah. Okay, cool. Let's hold off because I curious what that reaction was like, but I want say it.

It's quite funny that you're looking at, I guess Facebook or Instagram. Yeah. And you see the guys with the black flags or whatever, and it's almost like, do you use the term thirst trap here in the, in the UK it's, yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's like an ISIS thirst trap that this guy had going so interesting

[00:19:07] Tareena Shakil: that you should say that because when I was, I, none the wiser, everything happened, came back to England, whatever.

But on trial, one of my legal teams said. You do know that this guy, 'cause I give them his name and everything. You do know that this guy is responsible for like hundreds of girls running away from Europe.

[00:19:24] Jordan Harbinger: Really? And I

[00:19:25] Tareena Shakil: was like, what? That's my friend. You know? In my head. Yeah. Not probably now when I had escaped, but I'm like, no, but that, that was my friend.

He was my friend. What? She's like, no, this man's name has cropped up in hundreds of cases. That was the first time I realized I had been groomed. Right. He was a

[00:19:41] Jordan Harbinger: recruiter for isis. Yeah,

[00:19:42] Tareena Shakil: absolutely. Yeah. That's how it goes. Young, handsome man on the internet. Speaking to women. Get them to come over here.

Basically. That's what it was, what you've just said.

[00:19:53] Jordan Harbinger: It's crazy. It's

[00:19:54] Tareena Shakil: crazy. It is.

[00:19:55] Jordan Harbinger: But it was an effective strategy, right? They dress this guy up, they take photos of him, and then they just sit him in front of, or they get him, I don't know, an unlimited plan on his phone, and he's sitting there DMing. 12 girls a day or as people, yeah, 20 girls a day.

What? Weigh a hundred? Yeah. Wow. And within a few weeks he's kind of won you over, right? Yeah. Because you change your Facebook. I've seen in your documentary there's like an ISIS flag and Yeah. Maybe a photo of you wearing, is it a burka stock photo? That was just a picture from Google. Images

[00:20:22] Tareena Shakil: of a woman with beautiful green eyes and like her face covered.

Yeah. Gotcha. But that was what I did change the display picture too.

[00:20:27] Jordan Harbinger: At that point, surely you've seen other information about Islamic State. Did you think, oh, this is fake? Or was like the chaos a little bit of an interesting part of the deal? I

[00:20:36] Tareena Shakil: think for me it was more just about, I felt like I had to be there.

Mm-Hmm. I felt like I had to get there to live there because our conversation between me and this guy had become about how if you don't come to live here. You'll go to hell. You don't live in a country that's, um, has law. And in the beginning I did say, well, I've got family that live in Saudi Arabia. I've got family that live in other Muslim countries.

I'll go and live there. Yeah. And he is like, no, no place on this earth has law apart from here. I'll never forget what he said. I used to ask him a lot of questions and he was like, look, sister, you are the only one that asks this many questions. I'm just gonna put it so simple to you. Mm-Hmm. Right now.

Staying in England, your body is levitating over the fire of hell. That is it. Mm-Hmm. And were you to die, you would drop into that. I have had nightmares even in prison, even out of prison. It's a recurring dream that happens where I'm levitating over like lava. Mm-Hmm. I started to have that nightmare.

Sure. I think the last time I had it was probably like last year. Mm-Hmm. It's still something that's there in my head.

[00:21:32] Clip: Right.

[00:21:33] Tareena Shakil: So the conversation took that narrative of you have to be here, and by the way, only the special Muslims get to make a hit. And then they re relay certain hadith and certain verses from the Quran that are taken out of context.

And go in line with what he says. You can't just pluck a verse out of a book and say, well, Jordan, this is what happens. It's in context. It needs to be in its entirety, you know? Mm-Hmm,

[00:21:55] Clip: sure.

[00:21:56] Jordan Harbinger: Because

[00:21:56] Tareena Shakil: I can pluck a bit out of any book and be like, look, this is what it says. But hold on. Did you read the whole thing, but

[00:22:00] Jordan Harbinger: you didn't, you're, you weren't a scholar of theat at that?

Absolutely not. No, not at

[00:22:04] Tareena Shakil: all. And

[00:22:05] Jordan Harbinger: so he just weaponized it against you?

[00:22:06] Tareena Shakil: Yeah, absolutely. Mm-Hmm. And another thing was like, he was a revert. He was from a Catholic family, and throughout our conversations, he would always make me feel like stupid, if that makes sense. Because he was like, you were raised in Islam.

How am I teaching you your, your religion? Well, because

[00:22:21] Jordan Harbinger: fanatical converts are the ones who know the most about this stuff typically anyways.

[00:22:25] Tareena Shakil: Well,

[00:22:26] Jordan Harbinger: at least in terms of propaganda.

[00:22:27] Tareena Shakil: I think at that moment, I just felt stupid because I was like, you know what? He's right. How don't I know what he's saying?

When he was raised Catholic and just has been Muslim for like, I dunno, maybe one year or two. I am probably not a good Muslim, so like I kind of believed what he had said a little bit.

[00:22:42] Jordan Harbinger: Well, he set himself up as an authority in order to exert that authority over you. My god. Yeah.

[00:22:46] Tareena Shakil: We would speak every time he had internet.

I found myself worrying if he didn't have internet because I was like, is he okay? I thought of him as a friend.

[00:22:55] Clip: Sure.

[00:22:55] Tareena Shakil: Literal friend. He did make some insinuation about getting married when I got there. I didn't want to marry him, so I had blocked him before I ended up traveling over there. I got the numbers of the people that I needed to get.

Sure. That would get me over there. Whatever.

[00:23:08] Jordan Harbinger: This guy, by the way, he was a European, right?

[00:23:11] Tareena Shakil: He was Portuguese, yeah. And

[00:23:13] Jordan Harbinger: he had left Portugal and gone to Syria.

[00:23:15] Tareena Shakil: Yes. So he came to London to be a footballer. He was a really, really, really good footballer. Okay. And I don't know, he made friends in London with, ended up becoming Muslim in London, I believe.

I think that's where it happened for him. Really? Yeah.

[00:23:29] Jordan Harbinger: Interesting. Yeah, I, I'm sure that MI five is on top of that one. Finding out how this guy got radicalized in London.

[00:23:36] Tareena Shakil: I, I'm sure he wasn't the only one that it happened to of I'm course not. There's probably loads of people that it happened to.

[00:23:41] Jordan Harbinger: You know who won't sell you into human slavery, the fine products and services that support this show, we'll be right back.

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Come on and join us. You'll be in Smart Company where you belong once again, all free@sixminutenetworking.com. Now back to Tarina Shaquille. So you tell your family, I'm going on a beach holiday in Turkey with my son, and they're like, okay, have fun. And then how does it go from there? You flew to Turkey.

[00:27:08] Tareena Shakil: So I flew to Turkey a book, like a one week holiday.

Now what I will say is it was never a hundred percent sure that I would run away to Syria. Yes, I traveled with that in mind. Mm-Hmm. Yes, I booked Turkey with that in mind. But I was saying to myself all along, I'm just gonna see how this goes, how far it goes. Mm-Hmm. Because remember, only the best of Muslims make it here.

Yeah. So you have to be special to make it there. Okay. Maybe I'm not, many people got arrested on the way. I dunno if people died on the way. I was wondering

[00:27:34] Jordan Harbinger: about that. I I was wondering how they, because it's a militarized border. They're just not, they're not just like, oh, all right. Yeah. Syria, it's right over there.

[00:27:40] Tareena Shakil: So they've got people that like patrol the border. Yeah. On the Turkey side. So they would know. 'cause look, the border is hundreds of miles long. Right, right. It's not possible to probably. Monitor the whole a hundred miles. I think there are checkpoints in certain places, but some of it as with every border, I mean you can just probably walk over there.

Farmland or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Farmland, desert. It was pure desert. That's what it was. So I traveled to Turkey with the idea that that is where you cross over to Syria. But I was like, you know what, let me see. But I want to mention before, 'cause it's important. So I went on a Monday to Turkey the night before I traveled, I went back home to Birmingham.

I don't know to like see the house for the last time or get a few things. 'cause I had been staying at my mom's. 'cause remember ex-husband's in Yemen, well husband's in whatever is in Yemen. Current. Current slash exhusband. Yeah, current slash whatever he is. I don't know. I don't care. It's complicated. Is in Yemen.

Yeah. So I was staying at my mom's. So I went back to get like a few things, say goodbye to the house and I will never forget, I sent him a message, my ex-husband, and I said to him. Look, this is your final chance to tell me now. Are you coming back? Yes or no? I don't wanna play games. I didn't say because I'm thinking of running away to Syria.

I didn't say anything like that, but I was saying, look, are you being serious? Are you married? Do you not care about your son like you said? Because I would say things like, what about your son? Are you not gonna come home? Oh, my son will grow to be a man. He'll find me he'll and all of them kind of things.

Yeah. Heart wrenching things. And I basically got a message of profanity back saying, move on with your life, basically. Mm-Hmm. Amongst all these swear words, I'm never coming back. I don't ever wanna see your face again. And I was like, are you sure about that? Okay. Obviously I cannot continue with what I want to say.

IE you will never see us again. He's like, yeah, who cares about you? Whoever cared about you and they're still abusing

[00:29:18] Jordan Harbinger: you from Yemen? Literally. But I just

[00:29:19] Tareena Shakil: want to say that the God honest truth is. Had he have said in their messages, I'm coming back on Thursday because he was coming back that Thursday.

Mm-Hmm. Ironically, the day I crossed over the border into Syria the day before is the day that he came back. So he knew when we had this exchange that his ticket was booked and he was coming back on the Thursday or Friday. He just wanted to piss you off. He just wanted to be nasty and horrible. Yeah. Had he have said in that moment, look, I'm coming back.

God, honest truth, I would never have traveled into Syria. We wouldn't be sitting here.

[00:29:46] Jordan Harbinger: Wow.

[00:29:46] Tareena Shakil: It's mad how

[00:29:47] Jordan Harbinger: close it all came. I mean it not close. It did happen. So, okay, so you flew into Talia Turkey. Yes. Then to, I'm gonna get this wrong, it's called Gian Tip or something like that.

[00:29:56] Tareena Shakil: From Antalia to Istanbul.

From Istanbul. You have a number to ring of a guy. So it's a chain of events. It's not one person who you're in constant contact with. Get to Antalia, ring this number. He tells you to fly to Stanbul, get to Stanbul, ring this number. He gives you another number. Fly to gte. When you're in GTE ring this guy.

And it's, it's just a chain of events. So yeah, an it's a security

[00:30:16] Clip: thing. Yeah, of course. Because

[00:30:17] Tareena Shakil: who are, there's no like they don't run a check on you. You could be anybody. That's a good

[00:30:21] Clip: point.

[00:30:21] Tareena Shakil: But ended up in Gian Tap, Southern Turkey, which is inevitably one of the places where they used to cross. People over from the other place was called San Eartha, but we ended up in Gata.

[00:30:32] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. So and what's in Gata? There's like a safe house.

[00:30:35] Tareena Shakil: It was a safe house? Yes. Okay. Just like a three or four story broken down house. Mm-Hmm. If that makes sense. I don't know. Third floor, all men, fourth floor women. Obviously. I was in the room with the women. A lot of Russians.

[00:30:48] Jordan Harbinger: Really?

[00:30:48] Tareena Shakil: Yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:30:49] Jordan Harbinger: Like Chechen guys or something?

[00:30:51] Tareena Shakil: Chechen, Pakistani, ohi. Okay. Where else were people from? It was Stan. Okay. You know, places like that. South America, Caribbean.

[00:31:00] Jordan Harbinger: Really? Yeah.

[00:31:00] Tareena Shakil: Yeah. Yeah. How

[00:31:01] Jordan Harbinger: random is that? How do you go from the Caribbean to join isis? I mean, hated, so I guess what, that woman

[00:31:07] Tareena Shakil: had such an interesting story. Huh? The one from the Caribbean.

[00:31:10] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, she, it was a woman?

[00:31:11] Tareena Shakil: Well, because I was in the room with her, so she had gone with her husband. And you're gonna think this is mad. But I met loads of people whose stories are like, you know, I said to you like, well, I was in two minds whether to go and if my husband head of text back, so many people are there, had that same story.

Mm. Not the exact same, but like, because my husband wanted to and I just like came and I didn't really question. And you would think now, hello? Yeah. Well there were so many women. I met people with extraordinary stories and she was one of them. She was like, I don't even know if I'm properly Muslim. I was raised.

It's mad. I know. Wow. It's crazy. It's crazy.

[00:31:44] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. And they're all going to Syria? Yes. Was anybody really ready for it or was everybody kind of like, yeah, I don't really know what to expect, but I think it's gonna be great.

[00:31:53] Tareena Shakil: I think not a lot of people spoke English, so the people that I could speak to, I see.

That spoke English. I think there was one family who was, a lot of people had people there that had already gone.

[00:32:02] Clip: Okay.

[00:32:03] Tareena Shakil: People like myself that didn't have anybody. There were few and far between to them this is the best thing because they've had their family tell them how it's good and they're going to be with family.

Right. Seldom did people totally leave everything behind like I did. Mm-Hmm. And go and be on their own there.

[00:32:20] Jordan Harbinger: So they must have thought you were the weirdo actually. Right.

[00:32:22] Tareena Shakil: Do you know I had this conversation with somebody when we first entered into Syria, a girl that spoke English, and she said, sister, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I am in awe of you.

And I was like, why? She said, like, to be on your own. I don't fathom that. I can't understand that. She was there with her two sisters. Her sister's husband was there, his brother, they had a whole family there. Sure. She was like, I couldn't do this on my own. Like I respect you. And I was like, I. I've never seen it like that, but Okay.

Thank you. Kind of thing.

[00:32:49] Jordan Harbinger: Sure. Oh my gosh, I've traveled alone abroad, certainly not to Syria. Yes. And people are like, wow, I can't believe you did that. Yeah. So I, I have like a 10% understanding of that. Yeah. Like, oh, you went to this whole country and set up a life on your own as a young person. Yeah. I just didn't, I didn't do it in a war zone and I didn't do it with my kids who, I can't even go to the grocery store with my kids.

So I, I have to say you did, regardless of where you went, it is impressive in which sort of every sense of the word that you did manage to do it with, with a child, it would've been so annoying to do that with Wow. Uh, to say the least. So, how old are you at this point? Like 26 years old. No,

[00:33:23] Tareena Shakil: I, I

[00:33:24] Jordan Harbinger: 25,

[00:33:24] Tareena Shakil: 24. 2024.

Okay. Branching on 25, should we say.

[00:33:27] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. And then how long were you in Syria?

[00:33:31] Tareena Shakil: Eight weeks.

[00:33:32] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. Wow, that must have been eight. Long week. What is it like there? Well, actually, let me back up. You're in the safe house in Gae. How do you get into Syria? Like you said, the borders sort of protected, sort of unprotected.

What is that like?

[00:33:43] Tareena Shakil: So basically a truck came and got us all together and drove us, I don't know, 40 minutes should we say? Mm-Hmm. To deserted farmland. Desert,

[00:33:52] Jordan Harbinger: just rocks and dirt kind of deal. Literally

[00:33:54] Tareena Shakil: Sandy. Wow. Pure desert. And then they were like, get off, run, run and showed us the direction to run in. So we, we ran in that direction for, I dunno, maybe 30, 40 seconds.

There was another guy waiting run that way. There was another guy waiting run that way. I probably ran for like three minutes, no more than five mm-Hmm. On the other side there's like, you know, one of them trucks that's open back. Yeah. The back is open. Yeah. I don't know what like what the name of that vehicle?

Like a pickup truck. Pickup truck. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. We just mounted the back of that pickup truck. Mm-Hmm. And when everyone had crossed the border, they drove us to this first. It's always a Toyota

[00:34:29] Jordan Harbinger: Hilux, by the way. I mean, I was, they love those things. I don't know what the deal is. It's like I just buys us half of them.

[00:34:34] Tareena Shakil: I didn't notice the vehicle of the truck. 'cause I think my adrenaline was running wild at that moment. Yeah. So I am. Yeah. I now am thinking about it. I remember exactly how I felt in that moment, getting on the back of that truck to find the words. It would be numb.

[00:34:47] Jordan Harbinger: Numb.

[00:34:47] Tareena Shakil: Oh, okay. I made it. What am I doing here?

But this is what you wanted though, wasn't it a circus in here? And when I say a circus, I don't mean it's all fun and games. It's going wild in here. I probably didn't have the words to say in the moments. Mm-Hmm. 'cause it's like. Tarina. This is real now.

[00:35:02] Clip: Yeah,

[00:35:03] Tareena Shakil: this is real. Up until then, it had been speaking with people on the internet.

It had been watching things on the internet. That's not real. Right. I'm in England watching this. It's real when I'm here. As mad as this sounds and there will probably be loads of things that I say that sound mad to me. It was kind of like an adventure.

[00:35:21] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:35:22] Tareena Shakil: No, I get it. And I was like, oh, mission complete.

Yeah. Wild. But it's like made it here. Oh, only the best Muslims make it here.

[00:35:30] Clip: Yes. Yeah.

[00:35:31] Tareena Shakil: Brilliant. It's mad, but at the same time, what have I done? Family. My God. War zone. But at that time, I hadn't seen bombing or whatever. 'cause you're on the outskirts and it's like mixed emotions within myself. If you were with me in that moment, I probably couldn't have spoken to you.

Mm-Hmm. I didn't have the words. There was a training camp of fighters and they were like doing martial arts, or that was the first time I've seen it in real life. Mm-Hmm. And I don't want to use the words in awe because that insinuates that I was looking at something. I'm really happy but dumbfounded. Mm.

Okay. You are the people that I've. Watched on the internet for like, I mean, the grooming process took like six weeks. Yeah. It wasn't long at all. Interesting. But it became a big part of my life. Mm-Hmm. It was like every day

[00:36:16] Jordan Harbinger: watching them do the jump through the fire hoop. That's the thing I always laugh at.

I'm like, what skill is this where you're jumping through a hula hoop that's on fire? But I guess you never, never, when get asked to jump

[00:36:25] Tareena Shakil: through a hula hoop that's on fire. Do. That's right.

[00:36:26] Jordan Harbinger: That's right. You never know when they're gonna have to have one of those in a war zone. Hold jokes

[00:36:29] Tareena Shakil: aside, have you ever met someone famous that you're like,

[00:36:32] Jordan Harbinger: sure.

Like, oh, this, oh my God, there's Val Kilmer. Of course. Yeah. Not

[00:36:36] Tareena Shakil: that they were famous, but it's like, oh, okay, this is you. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. In that moment, frozen.

[00:36:41] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm. Starstruck. But for isis,

[00:36:44] Tareena Shakil: well, I don't, not starstruck as in like, if I seen Jennifer Lopez, my heart would hit the deck. Sure. I would fall over and be bright red.

So like none of that happened. Butt. Wow, you guys are real. Yeah. Yeah. It happens. It's real. You guys are really here.

[00:36:59] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. And then you roll into, was it raa? Is that the way they took you place? No.

[00:37:03] Tareena Shakil: So we spent like a week and a half in a place called Drabs, which is maybe, I dunno, an hour and a half away from raa.

Okay. After like a week and a half, felt like a year and a half, the van came and took the people that weren't married in RACA, because most of the women, as I said, that were there, had family already that were there that would come and get them and take them off to live wherever. So I went on a bus with, I don't know, maybe 20 other, the girls to raca.

That's

[00:37:25] Jordan Harbinger: quite a few people.

[00:37:27] Tareena Shakil: Yeah. Well, in the house that we went from on the bus there was. 150 people living there.

[00:37:32] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. It was

[00:37:33] Tareena Shakil: like a farm, a Syrian farm.

[00:37:35] Jordan Harbinger: 150 people. Yeah.

[00:37:37] Tareena Shakil: So look, there's like one place here, then another big, there's a compound house here. Yes.

[00:37:41] Jordan Harbinger: Wow.

[00:37:42] Tareena Shakil: Yes. Loads of women. Yeah. Loads. Holy loads.

Those loads.

[00:37:46] Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so you go to this like residence for women, for lack of a better word. Yes.

[00:37:50] Tareena Shakil: They refer to it as the mucker.

[00:37:51] Jordan Harbinger: What are the rules of this place?

[00:37:53] Tareena Shakil: Right. So you're not allowed your phone on you

[00:37:56] Jordan Harbinger: for security reason or? Well, it could

[00:37:58] Tareena Shakil: be anybody and you know Sure. A lot of the media that came out of there was controlled you.

You couldn't just start tweeting from Syria. You'd get into a lot of trouble like that.

[00:38:06] Clip: Okay.

[00:38:06] Tareena Shakil: Only set people could, you know, like they had the poster people, I dunno, in America if they had like you

[00:38:12] Jordan Harbinger: got ISIS influencers. Yes. But like, yes. Spoke to people in England. There were like

[00:38:15] Tareena Shakil: two or three people that England knew were there that were like quite famous for running away there and they had like a platform and like you say, ISIS influencer.

Sure. I don't know another way to describe it. They had special permission to do that. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. I couldn't just go on Facebook and be like, hi, Tarina, Shaquille here, loving it. No, and that's one of the reasons why when I was in Syria, there's no social media posts from me at all.

News coverage, yes. Loads of it. But posts from me on Twitter, Facebook, nothing. None of them were logged into at all. Because you can't, so yeah. Phones taken off you, you are not allowed to just go out and about when you want. No,

[00:38:50] Jordan Harbinger: because you're a single woman. Is that why?

[00:38:52] Tareena Shakil: I mean, I guess you just don't go out and about.

Okay. It's not done. But

[00:38:56] Jordan Harbinger: men can do it right

[00:38:57] Tareena Shakil: around Racker, but none of the fighters could. And I always found this interesting, I dunno why. And ICE's Fighter could not just get on the bus from Racker and go to the next city. You have to have something called Waka. Waka means paper, which is permission to travel from the person who's in charge of raa.

Hmm. So everything is controlled. Women a lot. Yes. Men to a degree. Hmm. All of it. Controlled men and women.

[00:39:20] Jordan Harbinger: Well, yeah. It's a security state. Of

[00:39:22] Tareena Shakil: course it is. Because we don't know who you are. We don't know what you've seen, we don't know what your intentions are. And what I will say is women like myself who had come from England, France, America, countries that were part of the coalition that were bombing isis, they were the enemy of isis.

So people like myself who come from a country that was in the coalition were always treated differently. I see. Always, always some level of scrutiny. Always watched that bit more. Mm-Hmm. Always, I dunno, like kind of like whispering behind your back kind of thing. Yeah. People who would, I mean, I was with people from.

It was Becky, Stan Turk. Stan. You know, they were a lot freer than we were. Sure. Because it's like, okay. Like you're probably not a spy if you're from them countries. Right. I don't know what the rationale was, but Yeah. There was

[00:40:06] Jordan Harbinger: like a 10% worry that you were actually a spy. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:40:09] Tareena Shakil: Like it's okay, cool.

I noticed that the girls like myself, like they were just question a little bit harder. Oh. So what's, share your story with me. Mm-Hmm. How come you're here? Because like I said before, there's no check. You don't apply for a visa to go there.

[00:40:22] Jordan Harbinger: Right, right. You know,

[00:40:22] Tareena Shakil: anybody can go there. How do they know I'm not a spy?

And particularly like with my involvement with the media, I just had all eyes on me at all instances. Really? 'cause it's like I. Who is this girl? Big question mark over my head. All of these,

[00:40:35] Jordan Harbinger: do your parents know that you're in Syria at this point? Right? How did they find out?

[00:40:39] Tareena Shakil: So you were not supposed to tell your parents anything.

[00:40:42] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. I

[00:40:43] Tareena Shakil: was with people in Syria whose parents thought they were in Turkey, whose parents thought they were in their in Morocco, like on

[00:40:50] Jordan Harbinger: a long trip or moved. Moved here just like work and I'm

[00:40:53] Tareena Shakil: just working in Turkey. Like whatever I see, I'm just traveling through Turkey. I'm backpacking, you know? Mm-Hmm.

It's not untoward. People do them kind of things. Yeah, of course. But me, I'm from a really close family. Oh. I don't wanna start crying. Our family is built on love.

[00:41:06] Clip: Yeah.

[00:41:06] Tareena Shakil: All we have is each other, as in mom, dad, sister, two brothers. We just have each other. Mm-Hmm. Right. We're a unit. We fight together, we die together kind of thing.

I first sent the first message when I was in Gian to say to my dad, look, I'm not coming back. He thought I was joking because look, you would never expect I'm having such

[00:41:25] Jordan Harbinger: a great time. I'm never coming home. Not what I mean, dad. Not what I mean. I'm

[00:41:28] Tareena Shakil: like, dad, I'm No. I said, I'm going to Syria. I said that to my dad.

Oh my God. And he was like, right, whatever. We'll see you when you back. You're hilarious when you come back. Because he wouldn't think that. Nobody would think that about me. No, you just wouldn't. I've never had them interests. There's nothing pro extremist. Extremist in my past, or even since I've come back.

There's nothing there.

[00:41:47] Jordan Harbinger: Well, he's thinking, oh, my daughter who watches the Kardashians is joining isis. Yeah. All right. Have a fun trip, honey. We'll see you when you get home. Hundred percent.

[00:41:53] Tareena Shakil: That's what he was like, you're so funny. Whatever. Like we'll see you when you get back. Literally to the point where even the day before I came back, yikes.

The day before I was supposed to come back, which was the following Monday, I was in Syria and they were messaging me saying, we're leaving for the airport now.

[00:42:06] Clip: Oh, that's sad. Heartbreaking.

[00:42:07] Tareena Shakil: Yeah. That I'm not happy with myself about, there are a few things like that that happened. I hate myself for that.

Let's be honest about that. Cruel, horrible

[00:42:15] Jordan Harbinger: man. What was their reaction when they realized that you actually, so

[00:42:18] Tareena Shakil: as a precautionary measure, they had rang the police when I had just entered Syria. 'cause my dad was like, look at this point, I don't know if she's actually joking or like she's going along with it a bit too much now.

Like, because if something's a joke, you just say it once. Right. And you have a laugh about it. But when they carry on asking me and it's the next day, it's like, no, dad, I told you I'm not coming back. So he had called the police already.

[00:42:38] Clip: Oof.

[00:42:39] Tareena Shakil: But they still had that hope in their heart that I was joking with them to the point where, yeah, we're leaving for the airport the day before.

Mm. I guess they were holding onto the fact that it was a joke. Right.

[00:42:49] Jordan Harbinger: Sure. You know, because

[00:42:50] Tareena Shakil: you don't do that torina,

[00:42:52] Jordan Harbinger: right. Oh, our daughter doesn't do

[00:42:54] Tareena Shakil: that. Our sister doesn't do that. You're coming home. We know you are. You know?

[00:42:58] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Oh my God. So when did they realize that you had actually left and joined?

[00:43:04] Tareena Shakil: I think I. The moment they knew it was real was when I wasn't on the flight like I was, I didn't come back that day. So then

[00:43:09] Jordan Harbinger: they called the cops and they're like, okay. We think she actually, they had called the cops

[00:43:11] Tareena Shakil: already, like, 'cause I remember I told them from gte, I'm going into Syria, Uhhuh. And then like he obviously, he messaged me the next day.

I was like, I'm in Syria.

[00:43:18] Jordan Harbinger: Surely they called the police back, like, Hey, she missed her flight. Maybe she wasn't joking about the thing I reported yesterday. Well, because

[00:43:23] Tareena Shakil: it was such a serious complaint that, well, not complaint serious. The police were in constant,

[00:43:28] Jordan Harbinger: I see

[00:43:29] Tareena Shakil: dialogue with them. So I think on Monday they were like, look, yeah, the back if she's not on the flight.

[00:43:34] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Oh man. Yeah.

[00:43:35] Tareena Shakil: Yeah.

[00:43:35] Jordan Harbinger: We'll come back to that. What is raa like? You're in, you're stuck in the house, so I'm assuming you didn't witness any violence or anything like this. Yeah, I,

[00:43:42] Tareena Shakil: I haven't witnessed any heads on spikes, dead bodies or anything like that? No.

[00:43:47] Jordan Harbinger: On tv at this point in the west we're seeing ISIS beheadings.

Yeah. They murdered that pilot by lighting him on fire in the cage.

[00:43:54] Tareena Shakil: I mean, that had happened when I had come back.

[00:43:56] Jordan Harbinger: I see. Okay. Bull.

[00:43:57] Tareena Shakil: Yeah. There was a lot of violence in Syria that the world had have seen whilst I was there. I didn't see anything like that.

[00:44:03] Jordan Harbinger: At the time that you were over there, ISIS was, had even beheaded a couple Brits actually by that time.

A journalist, I think.

[00:44:09] Clip: Okay.

[00:44:10] Jordan Harbinger: And I know that the attacks on the west happened after you left already, but I'm guessing you, were you aware of like, Hey, they beheaded this journalist like, but he was a British guy. You must have known that had happened, but thought Oh, I mean, yeah.

[00:44:22] Tareena Shakil: Well I think it had happened before I had gone.

Yeah. And I spoke to the Portuguese guy and I said, look, what's come on? Like this is what we've seen on the news, what's going on here? The narrative was always, do not let them distract you. Don't, you know, the media hates Islam. They don't want us to have Sharia. They will do anything to kind of stop you from coming here.

So it was kind of said like it, look, it's not real.

[00:44:46] Jordan Harbinger: I see. So they were arguing, Hey, this is fake. Yeah. Fake news. Well,

[00:44:49] Tareena Shakil: yeah, it's fake. And at the same time, look, Tarina don't get sidetracked. They will do these tactics. Mm-Hmm. They say anything to make Muslims look bad in the, um, in the news. Look, you're a British girl.

You know how it goes. The media is the enemy of Islam kind of thing. Mm-Hmm. And then he would go on to say, well, do you know how they kill the Muslims in so and so? And do you know how they killed the Muslims in Afghanistan? And you know, kind of like bringing it back. Like, do you know how the Sharah, Asad slaughters the Muslims over here?

Yeah. Do you know what he does to their children? And kind of like as a distraction technique, well, what they do is worse, or you know, even if it was real kind of thing. Mm-Hmm. So you kind of, that's horrific, right? Beheading somebody. Sure. Regardless. But the speech and the dialogue you have with this person kind of makes you think.

Put it to the back burner, if that makes sense. Mm-Hmm.

[00:45:34] Jordan Harbinger: Sure. So he distracts you from it and says even if it is real. Yeah. Which it might not be. They, they're doing worse things. Yeah, of course. Look of, look at Asad. Use chemical weapons on, on people. I mean,

[00:45:42] Tareena Shakil: there were horrific stories that come from Syria about how the Sha Asad torches the people.

And you know, they are heart wrenching stories and Yeah. He's a

[00:45:48] Jordan Harbinger: bastard. There's no kid around. He, he's

[00:45:49] Tareena Shakil: evil. And I didn't know about them things until speaking to this guy. I didn't know. I didn't watch the news. So he'd be like, well, read this about this. And you read harrowing things that even are inflicted upon children.

Yeah. To the point where at one point I genuinely thought, thank God you guys are there. Yeah.

[00:46:06] Jordan Harbinger: Oh man. Because it was like.

[00:46:07] Tareena Shakil: Well, we are here to liberate the Syrian people from Bashar Asad, but at the same time we're setting up Sharia. So like it's a win-win kind of thing. Mm-Hmm. So there was a point where I thought, my God, thank God you guys are there.

Mm. You are saving the Syrian people. Thank God.

[00:46:22] Clip: Mm.

[00:46:23] Tareena Shakil: You know? And part of the thinking was like that. Yeah. You know, so you kind of seen them as the good guys as much as the whole world knows what they are and that they're this evil group that do things that is not Islamic and like that are so against Islam.

Most Muslims hate Isis Passionately.

[00:46:39] Clip: Mm-Hmm.

[00:46:40] Tareena Shakil: I have Muslims that troll me, that troll me. And you think, dude, understand it. We're most like, you need to understand the concept of it. But no, they go in Mm-Hmm. They go in. So I think a part of the narrative was for you to resonate with them. Oh, thank God we need you there.

[00:46:57] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Would you say at that point were you kind of turned against the culture of the west or was there something else going on

[00:47:03] Tareena Shakil: for me? It's never been about against the culture of Would the West or anything like that. It was more about,

[00:47:09] Jordan Harbinger: it's hard to undo the programming you get from the Kardashians.

That's a lot, that's a lot to, you can't really undo that. It's there forever. It's Jordy Shores is forever, Jordy

[00:47:19] Tareena Shakil: Shores forever and that, you know, we'll always be watching them kind of thing. That's

[00:47:23] Clip: right.

[00:47:23] Tareena Shakil: For me, honestly, it was about making Hira Hira is migration for the purpose of Islam. Mm-Hmm. It was, I need to save myself from the fire.

If we live in this country, we're going to hell. And at the same time, you know what, remember I need revenge on my ex-husband as well. So it's, it was loads of things. It wasn't just this one. Never have hated England. Never. For what? Mm-Hmm. We're free here. Well, that's

[00:47:45] Jordan Harbinger: what everybody's wondering. Like she left this great place.

Yeah, absolutely.

[00:47:48] Tareena Shakil: I, I get that to go this

[00:47:49] Jordan Harbinger: shithole. I get that.

[00:47:50] Tareena Shakil: I get that. Trust me, I do. I have never hated my country, ever. We are free here. You can be Muslim here, you can be Sikh, you can be, you can be Jewish, you can be, you don't have to believe in a God. And it's fine because you have that opportunity here and you know, we've always loved that.

Mm-Hmm. It's a great country. You know, I'm, I've never hated England interest, but that's been pushing me a few times, like, a few times like, oh, you must have hated England. Never. And there was one time when living in the house in Syria, in Raca, I almost got into like, a lot of, a lot of trouble. A lot of trouble because.

I remember it. There was this spiral staircase and like everyone was just sitting down eating and I was walking down the staircase and there was the woman that used to look after the house. There was two women, one that was in charge of the whole house and one woman from Saudi Arabia that was in charge of the women inside the house.

I see. If that makes sense. So there's two, one from Morocco, one from Saudi. Mm-Hmm. We spent all of our time with the one from Saudi. She was in charge of us. I just came walking down the stairs one day and the woman from Saudi, she said as a joke, here she is the queen of England. How nice of you to come and join us, or whatever.

Because they were like fascinated by my accent and they said, you sound like the queen. Like you know, all of them kind of things. The queen has finally joined us, you know, taking the piss kind of thing. Sure. She then went on to say, oh, but don't worry, we will get you thrown back, blah, blah, blah. We'll take over England one day.

She said something like that. Then I said, you'll never take over England. Like that was my literal response. I said, you know, my actual words were back here. England back here means it will remain. When I tell you the room went silent.

[00:49:19] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. Crickets. Yeah. Literally

[00:49:21] Tareena Shakil: went silent, turned round and she's kind of like, what did you say?

And I was like, oh God, I shouldn't have said that kind of thing, you know? So yeah. Never hated England. Interesting. Almost got into big trouble because of that. Yeah. Whilst over there. But um, yeah.

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If you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find the code, email meJordan@jordanharbinger.com. I'm more than happy to surface that code for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, for the rest of part one with Tarina Shaquille, when was it like, oh, this is dangerous.

This place is dangerous.

[00:51:49] Tareena Shakil: So I wanted and was supposed to escape after like a week of being in raca, there was a group of girls that escaped before me.

[00:51:57] Jordan Harbinger: They just ran outta the house. So how did that happen?

[00:51:59] Tareena Shakil: Basically what happened was I would wake in the middle of the night to go to the toilet. And for three nights the same group of girls were sat there talking in the hallway.

And every time I walked past they were quiet. They'd get quiet. Yeah. One of the girls, I had become very good friends with. A girl from Qatar. Lovely girl. I not best friend, but like I just spent a lot of time with her. So on one of the days I said to her, look, I see that every night. What's going on? And she said, listen, please don't tell anybody, but we are planning to escape.

[00:52:27] Clip: Wow.

[00:52:27] Tareena Shakil: At nighttime, come and sit with us. So there was like her three other girls. And on the fourth night I went to sit with them and they were like, how are we gonna do it? And I said, you guys are meeting up every, this is what you guys are talking about. She's like, yes, don't tell anyone. 'cause we would have been killed.

[00:52:40] Jordan Harbinger: No kidding. No. So

[00:52:42] Tareena Shakil: the German girl said that she knew of a guy that was a nicest fighter that probably could have helped her. And the plan was flimsy. The plan was to jump over the wall and Of the The house? Of the house? Yeah. 'cause we lived, it was a mansion. The governor of Racker used to live there. I see.

But he obviously fled when ISIS took over. So this is like. Probably a $10 million house kind of thing in a fortress. So their plan was to jump over the wall and potentially take refuge with this ISIS fighter who, and I'm thinking, how can you put your trust in? The plan was flimsy. They were gonna sleep royal, save the least.

I said, look, I am dying to leave this place, but remember I've got my child with me.

[00:53:20] Jordan Harbinger: Oh yeah, I

[00:53:21] Tareena Shakil: can't, if I didn't have my child, I would've jumped over the wall with them. I said, look, I've put him in enough danger as it is already. I need something more than we're gonna just sleep rough. And how do you know the ISIS fighter is not gonna turn his back on you?

Sleep. Rough

[00:53:32] Jordan Harbinger: means what? Outside? Like

[00:53:33] Tareena Shakil: Well, like outside? Yeah. Yeah. Like, we'll just find somewhere to sleep and then Look, I've already messed up majorly. I can't do that. I need something more than, oh, I kind of know of a brother that, well what if he like goes back on you? What if he, yeah, what if he can't trust him?

I mean, there's

[00:53:46] Jordan Harbinger: a guy who joined ISIS and he is giving his life for isis. Absolute. You think? Absolutely. Think he's gonna smuggle you out of there. Of

[00:53:51] Tareena Shakil: course. So they jumped over. So the next day, the women of the house, the Saudi Arabian woman went to like the doctors, they went on like a big trip. Remember, you cannot just leave the house on your own until the sisters weren't with the kids.

I didn't witness it take place. But they must have jumped over the wall, right?

[00:54:07] Clip: Mm-Hmm.

[00:54:07] Tareena Shakil: And they said, look, when they come back, cover for us. I said, okay. I said my goodbyes to them. They went after like some hours of the Saudi Arabia returning, she was like, where's on? Whatever from Germany. And the whole house started looking for them.

This was after like hours. Oh no. And they were like, like Mother of England, let's say that. That's what they called me. You. 'cause you're not allowed to tell people your name there. Oh, okay. I was like, what

[00:54:30] Jordan Harbinger: do they call you? Yeah. Because

[00:54:30] Tareena Shakil: everyone had, you're not allowed to give your real name there.

[00:54:33] Jordan Harbinger: Really?

What? That's kind of strange.

[00:54:35] Tareena Shakil: It kind of is, but it's like, okay, if I escaped and got arrested like I did, right? Yeah. So now I can't tell you the Saudi Arabian woman's real name.

[00:54:44] Jordan Harbinger: Right? That's true. I,

[00:54:45] Tareena Shakil: I don't know her real name. She is MHA Saudi. That's it. So I can't go right back to my country and give account of her.

There's

[00:54:53] Jordan Harbinger: photos Because you didn't have a phone. No, I Right at all.

[00:54:55] Tareena Shakil: So, do you know what I mean? So it's kind of like for the purpose of anonymity.

[00:54:58] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm

[00:54:59] Clip: mm-Hmm.

[00:54:59] Tareena Shakil: And she was like, Nia, you were the last, like, you're a really good friend with her. Where is she? And I was like, oh, I dunno. Knowing dumb. Well they've gone, she was enraged.

She was like, oh my god. You know, we'll find them anyway. They never did. But I was supposed to escape with them girls. I was just biding my time after that to try and find the way to escape.

[00:55:16] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:55:17] Tareena Shakil: Because I need to leave this place. I can't be here.

[00:55:19] Jordan Harbinger: You said in the BBC interview that there were two girls who were like unruly is the word you used.

Yes. What was the deal with them?

[00:55:26] Tareena Shakil: So one of them was an Algerian girl from France and one of them was a daggy Stanley. When I say unruly, it's not unruly. It was, they were probably missing home. They didn't wanna be, they wanted to be left alone.

[00:55:37] Clip: Mm-Hmm.

[00:55:38] Tareena Shakil: Like she wanted her phone. This is the Algerian woman.

She was just like, I don't want to eat with everybody. I just want to be on my own.

[00:55:44] Clip: Mm-Hmm.

[00:55:45] Tareena Shakil: And then they were like, no, you need to come and sit with everybody. What are you doing there? And like that kind of behavior was determined, unruly. Okay. So she got into a fight with like, I think it was a Saudi Arabian woman there because she had tried to like attack her and hit her.

And I remember trying to stop that fight, but after like a day or two. I don't know. They just got fed up with this Algerian French girl and a van of ISIS fighters came in the house and just took her away.

[00:56:11] Jordan Harbinger: Oh my God.

[00:56:12] Tareena Shakil: Literally, yeah.

[00:56:13] Jordan Harbinger: Do you have any idea what happened to that? I

[00:56:15] Tareena Shakil: don't know. And the same thing happened to the girl from Dagestan.

They like beat her badly in the house badly, and then the next day it was just like, right, you're going. Never seen them again.

[00:56:27] Jordan Harbinger: Oh man. What do you think happened to them?

[00:56:28] Tareena Shakil: At the very least, they would've been taken to prison. Were they killed? I mean, I don't know, but. At the very least they would've been taken to prison.

[00:56:35] Jordan Harbinger: That must've been really scary.

[00:56:36] Tareena Shakil: That was really scary. And when you think about it as well, at the same time, like I'm trying to escape as well. Yeah. So you're like, you know, so I'm like,

[00:56:42] Jordan Harbinger: oh, I'm not gonna mouth off to that Saudi woman, but I am gonna jump over the wall with a child and trying to escape, which is way worse.

Yeah. So I was just

[00:56:50] Tareena Shakil: trying to like find the way I can't jump over the wall with a child that that couldn't have happened.

[00:56:56] Jordan Harbinger: No, of course.

[00:56:57] Tareena Shakil: So I was waiting for something and at the same time, continuously praying and at the same time, I can't tell my family as well, look, I don't wanna be here because there's all these stories going on in the media.

Like, I can't trust anybody. How do I know it's not gonna happen? That you're gonna tell the media like you're getting me into big trouble here. You think it's cool that you're giving these stories to the media, but you're putting pressure on me here. Mm-Hmm. Like the Saudi Arabian woman is infatuated with me.

Like she just wants to like be with me all the time. Oh, because you're the girl from England. You know, it's weird. So there's

[00:57:25] Jordan Harbinger: stories about you in the, in the international media I threw through throughout my whole

[00:57:28] Tareena Shakil: time in Syria, like almost daily, the British media. So

[00:57:31] Jordan Harbinger: you're like a famous tabloid.

[00:57:33] Tareena Shakil: Literally, I met people in England in prison that were in Syria at the same time as me, that came up to me and was like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm meeting you. I was like, who are you? Yeah. She's like, yeah, we lived in Syria at the same time.

[00:57:44] Jordan Harbinger: Oh gosh.

[00:57:45] Tareena Shakil: Weird, mad, crazy. Yeah. Like out of this world.

[00:57:48] Jordan Harbinger: So you're like, uh, the it girl of isis, I think is one of the titles that I saw when I was prepping the show.

[00:57:53] Tareena Shakil: Really? The IT girl of not a bad title.

[00:57:55] Jordan Harbinger: Not a bad title. I mean,

[00:57:55] Tareena Shakil: um, yeah. Yeah. I could, they weren't like me there. Yeah.

[00:57:59] Jordan Harbinger: I know that unmarried women who joined the caliphate are supposed to get married off right away to fighters. Like that's why you had to be in that house or whatever. Right. You mentioned that they were, there was like a matchmaking situation going on.

Yeah. What was that all about?

[00:58:12] Tareena Shakil: So basically as soon as you got to the house in raca, you would give your preference. Okay.

[00:58:16] Jordan Harbinger: IE.

[00:58:17] Tareena Shakil: What languages should they be able to speak? Okay. What country do you originally come from? What would, how long do you, how you want the beard

[00:58:22] Jordan Harbinger: to be?

[00:58:24] Tareena Shakil: They didn't ask about the beard.

I'm just kidding. Right. But maybe, maybe they wanted to add that question on. Yeah, no, all jokes aside, um, questions like, what languages do you speak, what languages you want them to speak, what country do you want 'em to be from? All the, and we will try to match you up as close as we can. Yeah. They just kind of wrote it down on a piece of paper, so it's

[00:58:40] Jordan Harbinger: like English, the end.

I'm curious what your preferences were. I,

[00:58:44] Tareena Shakil: I don't even, what, what all my preferences are made up to go along with the damn thing. Right. I think I just said, well, someone that speaks English. Yeah.

[00:58:50] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Oh my gosh, that's So someone's gonna let go

[00:58:52] Tareena Shakil: back to England. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Like

[00:58:54] Jordan Harbinger: somebody who wants to, who loves traveling, they're like, mm, no, we don't really have that here.

[00:58:58] Tareena Shakil: Someone who wants to go back to their home

[00:59:00] Jordan Harbinger: country. Yeah. Oof. Oh my God. So are they introducing you to these like ISIS fighters? What are these guys like?

[00:59:08] Tareena Shakil: So I did have a meeting Yeah. With an individual. I. You have a few minutes to speak to this person, you can't really get right a good feel for them. You just, so in the room, it's me, that man and the guy who's the matchmaking guy and his wife, but they will sit with their back to us.

[00:59:25] Jordan Harbinger: They're just making sure that you don't like do anything inappropriate. Well, that's

[00:59:28] Tareena Shakil: an Islamic thing anyway. Like even now, if you wanted to date, you would not just go on your own. That's just the rule that we're supposed to follow. Yeah,

[00:59:37] Clip: okay. I'm not

[00:59:37] Tareena Shakil: saying every Muslim follows that rule, but you're supposed to do that.

Okay. You're not supposed to be alone, as it were with someone who you're not married to. People uphold that, people don't, but that's the ruling. So yeah, they were there for that to like minimize that being alone with somebody.

[00:59:50] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:59:51] Tareena Shakil: And you just have like five minutes, maybe not more than that

[00:59:54] Jordan Harbinger: really to speak

[00:59:55] Tareena Shakil: to this person to make

[00:59:56] Jordan Harbinger: sure that they're not, what are you supposed to decide in that five minutes?

[00:59:59] Tareena Shakil: If you want to marry them, but

[01:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: what, what are they telling? Like, make sure, what are you even supposed to ascertain? I, I can't

[01:00:04] Tareena Shakil: even remember what I spoke about.

[01:00:06] Jordan Harbinger: Oh my gosh. Five minutes. Geez.

[01:00:08] Tareena Shakil: I can't even remember what I spoke about in that moment.

[01:00:10] Jordan Harbinger: Some people think that you got married there because you were allowed to leave the women's residence, and I know that you're like, oh gosh, why do people think that?

Because you were allowed to leave the

[01:00:21] Tareena Shakil: women's home. So it's not that I was allowed to leave it. I, she sent me to go and get internet, because the story is the Saudi Arabian woman. She was never supposed to be there forever. She had a guy who, I think he was Kurdish that she wanted to marry. Oh, okay. But because she was Arabic, they wanted her to marry someone Arabic.

They didn't want her to like go off with this Kurdish man. So they were not allowing her to get married that

[01:00:41] Jordan Harbinger: the Kurds fought isis. But were there Kurds and ISIS too? No, there,

[01:00:44] Tareena Shakil: there were a lot of Kurds. It was the Peh murder Kurds that fought against isis. But yeah, of course there were a lot of Kurdish people who were there.

They were just not letting her marry the guy. I think she had dialogue with him before she came. Mm-Hmm. To Syria or whatever. She just knew who she wanted to marry. It wasn't a matchmaking service for her. In fact, I think she had ran away for that person. Like basically she had started speaking to him while she was in Saudi.

He was already there. I see. Fighting. So it's, I dunno if they fell in love online or something like that. But she had met him, decided she wanted to marry him. She was coming there for him. They were not allowing that to happen. This woman was a shadow of her former self. Mm. She was. In despair. She wasn't leaving the room or anything like that.

Now, when we first got there, we weren't allowed to have our phones on us. The girls that kept hold of the phones had got married and gone off. I became to know where the phones were because I was someone who was there, who was there for like weeks. Girls got married and went within days of being there. I see.

So I was like a consistent figure kind of thing. You built

[01:01:39] Jordan Harbinger: seniority up really fast.

[01:01:41] Tareena Shakil: Yeah, she was familiar with me. Everyone else has to get to know them all over again, but me, it's like, oh, I know you. You've been here for, I dunno how many, well, I stayed there in entirety for like eight weeks. Yeah, you've been here for a good four or five weeks, whatever.

I know you, I came to know where the phones were because she was Canadian or whatever. She got married and I knew where the phones were. Anyway, the Saudi Arabian woman, as I said, she just went back into her shell. She wasn't leaving her room and she asked me to go and get internet for her one day. Now how it worked in Syria was if you live close to a internet cafe, you just go and buy a code and you just connect.

[01:02:13] Clip: Mm-Hmm.

[01:02:14] Tareena Shakil: To their webpage and put the code in and you've got internet. I

[01:02:17] Clip: see.

[01:02:17] Tareena Shakil: So she wanted internet. She sent me the first time and when I was walking to the internet shop, I seen the Caribbean woman's daughter, the one that I traveled over into Syria with. I seen her daughter and I was like, oh my God.

Like, where's your mom? Mm-Hmm. Like this. This is a miraculous thing that I bumped into them. Small

[01:02:38] Jordan Harbinger: world. Yeah.

[01:02:38] Tareena Shakil: Sent from heaven, you know, because I said to you before, she was very vocal about, I don't even know what I'm doing here. Like I don't wanna be here. Mm-Hmm. Kind of thing. But she went with her husband.

She was heavily pregnant. It was different for her. She had her love who was there in her heart. I understand that he's her husband from her home country. They love each other, so it's not mine ever matter for her. 'cause she loves this guy. Anyway. She's like, look, I dunno if I wanna be here. She was saying all of these things from Olis.

When I left Olis, she didn't come to RACA because she was married. Yeah. Yeah. So we parted ways there. I gave her my number in Duris, but I never heard from her. Like I said, I just seen her daughter in the park and I was like, oh my God, where is your mom? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Her mom was sitting on the bench and the first thing I said to her was, do you still want to leave?

She's like, oh my God, I want to escape so badly.

[01:03:27] Clip: Mm.

[01:03:28] Tareena Shakil: And I said, me too. I'm at the house. I don't wanna be here anymore. What? How do we go about this? She said, look, what are you doing now? I said, look, she's literally just sent me to the internet, and then I showed her where the internet shop was. She showed me where she lived.

It was all very close. The streets in Syria, they're long, but there's a lot on them. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, sure. Yeah. She lived there and the internet shop was on there, but like it's a longer street. She said, come with me now. I said, I've got nothing. Mm. I have got nothing. I've just come to get internet, and she's like, well, I don't do much.

I'm just literally in the park all the time, but however I live here, I'll wait for you in the park every day. And if I'm not here, I live there. Yeah. So like I knew where, where it would be. Okay. Her husband was training as well. She was like, my husband's not at home. If her husband was there, I wouldn't have been allowed there.

[01:04:12] Clip: Sure.

[01:04:12] Tareena Shakil: So I said, look, I don't know, maybe she's gonna send me to get internet. Maybe I'm gonna jump over the wall. I, I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I will just gimme a few days. Right. I'll be back after a few days when the internet had run out, the Saudi Arabian woman, she was like, Britain, you need to go and get me internet.

I was like, oh my God. Yes.

[01:04:29] Jordan Harbinger: That was my chance. Yes.

[01:04:31] Tareena Shakil: I had our passports with us because they never took the muffles. I dunno why a lot of people ask, why did they not take your passports? I can't answer that question.

[01:04:38] Clip: Mm-Hmm.

[01:04:39] Tareena Shakil: A lot of people did their own little ceremony of burning their passports when they got there.

So, I dunno if they thought that they didn't have to, but I had my passports grabbed the passports, grabbed like the essentials. Yeah. Uh, my phone and Yeah. Went, met up with the woman from the Caribbean, left the house. Never ever went back to that house again. Mm-Hmm. Ever. HID out in her house for like no more than three days.

No more than I'm

[01:05:02] Jordan Harbinger: surprised they weren't looking for you. Well, they were okay.

[01:05:05] Tareena Shakil: They were, but they wouldn't have known where I was.

[01:05:07] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[01:05:08] Tareena Shakil: And you know, ah, the thing is, I'll get into the escape, but what, just to get onto your, I'm surprised I weren't looking for you kind of thing. I met up with the Caribbean woman in Turkey, so I escaped before her.

'cause she didn't have the courage to come with me. She was like, I'm gonna see if you make it first. I was like, look, I'm not staying. They're gonna kill me if they find me, I need to go. Yeah. Escape met up with her in Turkey and she said the day after you escaped one Indonesian woman that me and her knew of in Duris that was at the house, kind of like we knew each other, came to my house looking for you.

But they had sent her. Ooh, yeah. Literally they had sent her from, 'cause she used to live in the house in Raca with me. The Caribbean woman didn't, the Indonesian woman did. And she knew of like, oh, we used to be friends with her or you know, kind of clutching it, like straws or whatever. And they went to her house

[01:05:52] Jordan Harbinger: and looked, looked for you.

Looked for me. Is RACA dangerous at this point? 'cause is it being bombed? Yeah,

[01:05:56] Tareena Shakil: there were, there were a lot of bombs going on. Wow. That was another thing that was increasing. So that was why I was like, it's do or die. Mm-Hmm. There's no perfect time to escape from ISIS held territory in Syria, right? No. If you are waiting for your perfect time, you'll be waiting forever.

So that was on the increase as well. When I first got there, the coalition had hardly ever bombed, but they were ramping it up and I was like, I don't want this to sound. Well, there's no way it can sound, there is a difference between like bihar's bombs and the coalition's bombs. Mm-Hmm. Bihar's bombs are very cheap.

It's very like, you know, that that bomb's coming. I'm not saying they didn't kill people, he killed a lot of people, A lot of carnage. But you can kind of like. Oh, it's dropping. There probably shouldn't be, you know, interesting. Like kind of get out kind of thing. Wow. Well, maybe not avoid it like that, but you kind of have an idea.

But the coalitions bomb, like they were like way more deadly, way more advanced, way more expensive, way more dangerous. Bombs are dangerous. Obviously Bahar bombs are dangerous, but these were way more like they dropped in silence and there was one night where they bombed like 30 times, one after the other.

That was harrowing.

[01:07:00] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah,

[01:07:01] Tareena Shakil: that was Petro. I thought I was gonna die that night.

[01:07:03] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I'm surprised they didn't target that big house knowing that well

[01:07:08] Tareena Shakil: people were

[01:07:09] Jordan Harbinger: in there.

[01:07:09] Tareena Shakil: That was a place that they used to target. They used to target like training camps. Yeah. Um, houses. Maybe they didn't know that that existed.

I dunno. Yeah. It was never hit whilst I was there afterwards. I dunno.

[01:07:20] Jordan Harbinger: I mean, I guess they probably knew you were there if your phone had ever been turned on in that place,

[01:07:24] Tareena Shakil: do you think?

[01:07:25] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[01:07:25] Tareena Shakil: Do you think they would've known I was there? Mm-Hmm. Well, it's interesting that you should say that because when I came back from Syria and I was being like interviewed by police and like all these other agencies, they said the fact that you were escaped is miraculous.

If your phone did not pinpoint to the fact that you were in raa, if we could not trace your phone to being in raca, we wouldn't believe that you were there. So I guess what you're saying, yeah, they knew was there, if

[01:07:49] Jordan Harbinger: your phone was ever on, whether you turned it on or they turned it on, they would've known where you were.

[01:07:52] Tareena Shakil: Imagine them hitting the house like, we gonna getter.

[01:07:55] Jordan Harbinger: Well, I don't think they would've tried to get you. I think, yeah, they would've said, well, okay, this person escaped there. She's not a high ranking ISIS member. Maybe this is where the foreigners are being held. We probably, I would imagine they would deliberately not target that particular place,

[01:08:10] Tareena Shakil: do you think?

I mean, yeah. Yeah.

[01:08:11] Jordan Harbinger: Knowing that you are potentially in there, I mean, it's not a really great military target. If it's just a place where a bunch of people stay for a few days, who escaped there? You're more valuable back in the US or in the uk. Yeah. Why does the FB, I think you were married to an American jihadi when you were there.

Okay. Waiting for that one. No. Yes, because

[01:08:30] Tareena Shakil: this, you know, right. So let's, let's, let's. When I said I had a meeting with somebody, that's the guy. Okay. Right. And there was two meetings, I dunno if one of his family members has said to the FBI he was married to a girl and

[01:08:43] Jordan Harbinger: he did. He said it.

[01:08:44] Tareena Shakil: My, what I've been told is that it was his family member that has said it, not him.

[01:08:50] Jordan Harbinger: Oh yeah. No. He told a journalist that he was married to a gal from the uk that Yeah.

[01:08:54] Tareena Shakil: But he didn't go on to say who it was, didn't, he didn't name you. But then the journalist Right. Went on and did research. Mm-Hmm. And it was a family member of his that said, that's who he's married to now. I had two meetings with this guy.

You only ever have one meeting. I went back to the house and I said, look, I, I'm not here to get married. Mm-Hmm. Okay. I can't say that to them, but I don't wanna marry him. Mm-Hmm. So she's like, okay, whatever. Someone else will come along right. After a few days, they were like, the Americans come back for you.

I was like, what? You need to go meet with him again? I went to meet with him and he is like, look. There are some really horrible guys here.

[01:09:26] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. He's not wrong. I'm sure. Like

[01:09:27] Tareena Shakil: you will be safe with me.

[01:09:29] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm?

[01:09:30] Tareena Shakil: Like you should just marry me. Like what a

[01:09:31] Jordan Harbinger: sales pitch. I am the least worst ISIS fighter.

[01:09:34] Tareena Shakil: Essentially. That's what he was saying.

[01:09:36] Jordan Harbinger: Bottom 10 worst.

[01:09:37] Tareena Shakil: That's essentially what he was saying. But you know, I, there were some really horrible men that I had accounts from, women that came back to the house that had been divorced and stuff that they had been through was harrowing. And I think that's what he was trying to say.

Sure. Like, look, there are some incredibly violent men here. Like you could marry far worse than me, kind of thing. Yeah. Right. You never give your answer then and there.

[01:10:00] Clip: Okay. So

[01:10:00] Tareena Shakil: I was like, okay, food for thought, whatever, you know, went, you know, I'll, I'll think about it. I'll think about it. Thanks. Thanks for coming back.

I'm not here to be married, but the pressure is on. So. Yeah. She said the Saudi Arabian woman said, I'll give you a few days to think about it. Mm-Hmm. She came back, I said, look, I don't wanna marry him. She said, what are you doing? Don't you see we're in the middle of war, blah, blah, blah. And I said, look, fine someone else.

But in that time. I had gone to get internet or whatever. Right. I know the American guy, I met with him twice and that's that.

[01:10:27] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Well, he's not around anymore, so we'll never know. No,

[01:10:30] Tareena Shakil: yeah, he is. Yeah. Yeah. I obviously knew that because of the journalist. Mm-Hmm. I knew that he had like come to pass, but I think he was married to a Syrian woman or something.

He did marry

[01:10:39] Jordan Harbinger: someone else. According to him, I had children. Mm-Hmm. But

[01:10:41] Tareena Shakil: yeah, that's my encounter with him.

[01:10:42] Jordan Harbinger: Gotcha. You are about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with Yes Alade who escaped Iran after the Islamic Revolution.

[01:10:51] Clip II: This uprising is about 43 years of oppression. We have a corrupt regime, which is an Islamist regime and has been torturing people.

It has been denying them the basics of human rights, as you see as corruption doesn't really begin and end with hijab. It's everything and anything. It's about the dignity of making a living. None of that exists in Iraq. People are poor because of this regime. They work hard, but they don't earn as much.

It's horrendous the way people have been suffering in Iran, mentally, politically, psychologically, and emotionally. I don't think an American can actually imagine what it is like to live in a country that is not just a dictatorship, not just an autocracy, but it's theocracy. That's what Iran is. Iran is, this is different this time.

The power of social media, the power of support by the worldwide community and how Iranians are not backing down. There is uprising and protests in universities across Iran every day. This is a revolution and it will end beautifully with a free Iran free from the grips of ITO Laws and IRGC.

[01:12:08] Jordan Harbinger: For

[01:12:08] Clip II: more

[01:12:09] Jordan Harbinger: on Iran and the recent protest checkout, episode 7 46 of the Jordan Harbinger Show.

Alright, that's it for part one, part two. Coming up in just a few days if it's not already out, all things to Rena will be in the show notes@jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers deals, discount codes, and ways to support this show, all at Jordan harbinger.com/deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show.

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[01:13:33] Clip III: Hi, cold Case Files fans. We have some exciting news for you. Brand new episodes of Cold Case files are dropping in your feed. And I'm your new host, Paula Barrows. I'm a cold case vile, super fan, true crime aficionado, and I love telling stories with unbelievable twists and turns. And this season of Cold Case, viles has all of that and more.

I want to die. I don't want to die. I

[01:13:57] Clip: want to die. Her cause of death was strangulation, crying face down on the bed. She was in a pretty advanced state of decomposition. A little bit of bloody froth had come from Deborah's mouth. He panicked and decided he was getting rid of the body.

[01:14:09] Clip III: I saw danger in everything.

So get ready. You don't wanna miss what this season has in store. New episodes of Cold Case files drop every Tuesday. Subscribe to cold case files wherever you listen to podcasts.