1040: Tareena Shakil | An ISIS Recruit’s Journey and Escape Part Two

1040: Tareena Shakil | An ISIS Recruit's Journey and Escape Part Two

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[00:00:30] Tareena Shakil: there's like three ISIS fighters there.

This can't be where it ends. I just ran with every footstep. Um, maybe I'm out of his range. If he shoots from there, can he hit me? At that precise moment, a Jeep full of Turkish soldiers drove past. I remember it so clearly. I was panting like a dog. He just kept saying to me, you're safe. Breathe. Breathe.

[00:00:55] 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. And our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional former jihadi, economic hitman, astronaut, or hacker.

And if you're new to the show or you wanna tell your friends about the show, and of course I appreciate it when you do that. I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics such as persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation and cyber warfare, crime and cults and more.

Oh, help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. If people are wondering where to dive in, just visit Jordan harbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started now today. Part two with Tarina Shaquille who ran off and joined isis. Uh, if you haven't heard part one yet, you're gonna wanna go back and listen to that because.

You gotta get warmed up for the level of, kind of bang your head against the wall foolishness that re that is required to run off and join isis. Sorry, Tarina, I know you're listening to this. You, you're a sweetheart. But here we go. Part two with Tarina. Shaquille. So tell me about your actual escape.

'cause it, you were pretty close to getting caught, which is

[00:02:11] Tareena Shakil: right. So

[00:02:12] Jordan Harbinger: terrifying.

[00:02:12] Tareena Shakil: I hit out at the woman's house, the Caribbean woman's house for, like I said, no more than three days. But in the meantime. We don't know where to go. How to go. Yeah. You're not allowed to travel around Syria.

[00:02:23] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:02:23] Tareena Shakil: Like I said, the ISIS fighters, they're not allowed to travel.

You have to have permission. And as well, like unmarried women are not like, you're not just allowed to be walking around. Can't throw around. No, of course. Absolutely not. So she said that the guy in the internet shop. At the other side of the street where she lived, speaks really good English. Mm-Hmm. She was like, he talks like you.

Let's not tell him that we want to escape, but let's just go have a conversation with him and just try to draw out whatever information we can from him in like a clever kind of way. Yeah. I said, okay, don't worry. Went to the internet cafe. The Syrian guy was there. I don't know why, but I looked at him and knew I could trust him.

He had a very kind face. He spoke English like me. He wasn't English or British, but. You know, when you go to like Arab countries or even other countries, people speak English with an accent. Mm-Hmm. He spoke it fluently with no accent. So

[00:03:09] Jordan Harbinger: he was like a foreign educated Syrian guy. Yeah. He

[00:03:11] Tareena Shakil: must have studied outside of Syria, but like, I don't know.

So I, he immediately resonated with him. I didn't straight away go in for the, oh, I'm trying to escape kind of thing. Yeah. I can't remember. We just struck up a conversation with him. He had the only internet shop that had a landline. 'cause all the other towers had been blown up. Mm-Hmm. And I was like, right, I can speak to my mom.

On the phone. Wow. For the first time. That's the first time I spoke to my mom on the phone, 'cause WhatsApp. Then we only exchanged messages on WhatsApp. No phone calls. I see. You probably could have exchanged phone calls on WhatsApp then, but I don't know. We just didn't. It was just messages. Yeah. Mm. So I rang her.

[00:03:43] Jordan Harbinger: What was she? What was that like? Oh,

[00:03:43] Tareena Shakil: I broke down crying. I was like, mom, mom, want to come home? I can't do it. I dunno what I'm doing. Mom said, your dad's coming to get you out. Don't worry.

[00:03:49] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, I don't.

[00:03:51] Tareena Shakil: Yeah. My dad is the most outspoken. Liberated. No ISIS fighter is telling my dad anything.

[00:04:00] Jordan Harbinger: He thinks he is gonna roll into Syria and be like, I'm taking my daughter.

He think he's

[00:04:02] Tareena Shakil: gonna fight them. Literally. Oh. Said my God said, listen, they'll kill me. They'll kill, they'll kill everybody. Are you crazy? Mom's like, well, dad said he, he's coming. He is. There's nothing that like you can do. He needs to come and save you. I said, listen, you do not understand that once you get here, every single person has to go.

Like men has to go under mandatory. Training for at least three weeks. Mm-Hmm. So what is he gonna do? Go and train with isis. You'll get plenty arrested. Are we all gonna get arrested? Come on, let's not. I

[00:04:26] Jordan Harbinger: mean, as a dad, I get it. The plan is to go undercover and rescue your daughter, even go undercover, even if you have to join ISIS in the process.

Jesus. But there's a lot

[00:04:32] Tareena Shakil: of legal implications as well. And at the same time, dad, you are, you are not listening to anybody. He wouldn't care that it's the nicest fighter. I know you probably think Tia just saying that. No, it's the truth. He wouldn't care. No, I, I have a 2-year-old

[00:04:43] Jordan Harbinger: daughter I would do this for,

[00:04:44] Tareena Shakil: literally, he would've tried to fight them.

Mm-Hmm. So I was like, no, mom, don't send dad. Like I'm trying. I'll find a way. Anyway, desperate struck up a conversation with the Syrian guy about random other things, and like I said, I just knew that I could trust him. So I said, how do you travel around Syria? He said, well, mainly people go by bus, but you can't travel without a paper and if you're not married, you can't travel.

I just said to him. Can you come with me and pretend to be like my uncle, my dad, because he was like older, like to say husband wouldn't have would've looked a bit weird. Yeah, because I was like really young looking and he was like quite old looking. It just, it would've been weird. I could tell by his face that he wanted to help.

He said, sister, they will kill me and you both. I can't. I want to help you, but I can't. He said, do you have any problems with dola? Dola means the state. I said, no, no, no. There's no problems. Means

[00:05:30] Jordan Harbinger: the what?

[00:05:30] Tareena Shakil: DOLA means, the state. He said, do you have any problems with Dole? Are you in trouble with them? I said, no, I just need to go to job.

I didn't say I was leaving. I said, I need to get to another point in Syria. I'm sorry. I can't help you. Okay, but you travel by boss? Yes. That's how we travel. Right. Got in a taxi to the bus station. Now I have no idea where I'm going. The only reason I know where I'm going is because when I went in, if you remember I said that there was like these ISIS fighters.

Mm-hmm. Training as soon as I got in. But there was like a sign and the name of that place was called Barbon. And that in Arabic translates to English as the door of lemons. So I remember thinking, what a weird name for a place. Mm-Hmm. This little town is called The Door of Lemons. Yeah. Stuck with me. I know that that place is where the border is.

'cause it's where I, I came

[00:06:14] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:06:14] Tareena Shakil: And I knew that there's a training camp there as well. Yeah. So I just know I need to get to Bob Limon 'cause it's right close to the border and I'll be able to run across the border. That's my plan right now.

[00:06:23] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. There are worse plans. Right. Well,

[00:06:24] Tareena Shakil: so I got to the bus station with the Caribbean woman, her daughter, whatever, blah, blah, blah.

And I said, look, I need to get to Olis. I didn't say Barbara Leun because I didn't wanna, yeah, hold on. That's on the the border. There's nothing there. It's farmland and there's a training camp there. What are you doing there? So I said, look, I need to get to Olis, which was close enough to Baron. And he said, look, buses are done for the day.

Come back tomorrow. So we went back to her house, stayed there. I remember saying to her, I said, look, after morning prayer, I'm going, are you coming with me? She said, oh, I dunno. Remember, she's got a husband there. Cold seat. Yeah. Literally. She's heavily pregnant with his first child, about to give birth as well.

She was scared. Of course she was scared. Yeah. You know, and she said, look, uh, let's go the day after tomorrow. I said, look, they're looking for me. They will kill me. I I don't have the time like you have. I said, look, after fudge after morning prayer tomorrow I'm going to the bus station. Mm-Hmm. I went without her.

I prayed the morning prayer. I went out into the streets of Racker. It was probably six in the morning. Yeah, because the morning prayer time changes. It was probably six in the morning. Flagged a taxi down. He took me to the bus station and when I got there I said, I'm going to dus. The guy said, we have no direct buses to Duss.

You need to change it. Memb, can I see your wach, your paper? I said, I don't have it. And he is like, oh, no, no, no. You're not allowed on the bus. Then you need to go and speak to these two guys. Two guys that were ISIS fighters sat in front of a big, massive black flag, but it was like a marketplace as well.

The bus station was in a marketplace. Are you buying apples, bananas, all of these things. So I'm like, oh my God, there's no way I am getting past these guys, but I, let me just try it. You sure. Let me just, I don't know what I'm gonna say, but I can't stop now. It's do or die. So I went up to the table, I said, look, I, I need to travel permission.

And he said, no allowed to travel. Where's your husband? I said, he's in the training camp in Bob Lemon. Right. Remember, I've seen a training camp coming in. There's no husband that's training there. Mm-Hmm. I just remembered that there was a training camp there. Sure. I said I haven't seen him. What are you doing?

Everyone else has been reunited with their husbands. I've been here for eight weeks, nine weeks, and I haven't seen him. Is he dead? What's, you know, i, I was just going for it. What is going on here? Where is he? I need to find him and I dunno why. This is another, throughout this story, there are things that happened that you'll be like, Tarina, stop hand on heart.

No lie. Genuinely happened. The ISIS vital was like. Can you just go and get on the bus? Like just go,

[00:08:44] Jordan Harbinger: go. Mm-Hmm.

[00:08:45] Tareena Shakil: He shooed me away. So I went and got on the bus. I was like, what? How

[00:08:48] Jordan Harbinger: did that happen? Yeah. Wow.

[00:08:50] Tareena Shakil: Literally God. Hand of God.

[00:08:53] Jordan Harbinger: So you mentioned bus drivers, taxis. So is ISIS doing like the security for the whole area, but there's this regular people who are stuck there now.

So the

[00:09:00] Tareena Shakil: Syrian, there were Syrian people that lived there.

[00:09:03] Jordan Harbinger: Oh man.

[00:09:03] Tareena Shakil: They had Syrian id. They cannot come and go 'cause they're Syrian. Imagine

[00:09:09] Jordan Harbinger: being stuck there and you're just like, guess we're not in this secular dictatorship now we're in a theocracy. That's just as crazy or worse. A

[00:09:17] Tareena Shakil: lot of the Syrian people were scared.

They didn't stay because they loved ISIS or they wanted to do it. They stayed because where do we go? Where do they go? Poor as hell. They might not want to go and be refugees wherever. Do you want be a refugee? I don't wanna be a refugee. They're in their home. They got their business. Of course, they're in their home, they've got their little business.

They don't have trouble like ices. They don't trouble us. I might have to grow a beard. I don't mind doing that. I've got my little family, you know, whatever. No one's gonna harm me if I just act normal. Right? But a lot of them. Yeah, the love wasn't real from the heart. It was fake from the hundred for sure.

And I didn't say that in a way, like, oh, they give fake love. I said that in a way. That's what I've observed. Mm-Hmm. It was like we just put up with it kind of thing. Yeah. Well, they're

[00:09:52] Jordan Harbinger: used to it and I'm sure they don't, don't love their dictator yet. Well, it's like bahar

[00:09:54] Tareena Shakil: or these lies you choose which one's worse.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I don't know. Who knows, but it's.

[00:10:00] Jordan Harbinger: Kind of what a, what a terrible choice. Okay. Yeah. So they, they shoo you onto the bus? Yes. Are there checkpoints and stuff? Yes. So how does that,

[00:10:07] Tareena Shakil: so I knew there was gonna be checkpoints 'cause the guy from the internet cafe that I asked to come with me said there checkpoints.

He said, you're not gonna make it through them.

[00:10:15] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:10:15] Tareena Shakil: So I'm thinking that now, and I'm anticipating the first checkpoint I see the first checkpoint in the distance. By the way, on the bus is just me and other Syrian people. And one of the women said in Arabic, I can understand. Remember my ex-husband's Yemeni?

I understand Arabic. Oh yeah. Okay. Very well. They said, look, she is a mha, means a migrant. Look after her. Let's take care of her as much as we can. They never spoke to me. I just heard them say that about me. Anyway, we gotta the checkpoint and I'm like, please God. Like praying. Please God. Please God. Please God.

Don't let it end now. Don't let it end now. Shaking. Shaking. The ISIS fighter come onto the bus. All he did was just literally look around. He didn't ask to see anybody's paper. He didn't ask to see anybody's Syrian ID card. Hmm, nothing. He spoke for maybe one minute to the driver in Arabic. I don't even know what they were saying.

I, I couldn't tell you. Got off the bus, let us go. And I'm like, oh my God. Thank God. Wow. Come to the next checkpoint. I'm like, please God, please, please don't let it end here. Just guide me back to England. I'm sorry for whatever I've done, you know, making all of these prayers. I'll never do anything like this again.

God, please look. Just save me. So we gotta to the second checkpoint, same thing happened. Didn't ask to see anybody's papers. Just spoke to the driver in Arabic, whatever, third checkpoint. He didn't even come on. Hmm? They just said to the driver, keep going. I don't know if they had radioed on from the previous checkpoint.

I dunno why. But they didn't stop us. We got to me. When we were at Menage, they said, there's not a bus that goes to Duris. Um, you need to get in a taxi. They got me a taxi. I shared a taxi with these two other Syrian women that were on the bus with me, and they got off at, it was like a refugee camp somewhere near on the outskirts of menage.

And when they got out the taxi, I said to the taxi driver, I'm going to Oli, and he said. I can't just like drive with you like this. I need, you can't just travel with an unmarried man. An unmarried woman. Interesting. So he drove to his house and got his wife and children. Oh,

[00:12:06] Jordan Harbinger: because it's ICE's territory.

Well, yeah. So he needs to like, keep up Sha real. What if someone

[00:12:10] Tareena Shakil: stops us? You are alone with this. Come on, you're alone with this woman. It's like, you know, when there's a dictatorship, it's like prove you're innocence. Throughout history. If you've ever seen a group like ISIS or Dictatorship, they don't want to prove you innocence straight away.

They say something and that's what it is. Mm-Hmm. No, you're alone with this woman, so you must be doing something wrong. It's not like, okay, well listen to your reasoning.

[00:12:28] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:12:28] Tareena Shakil: Instantly something wrong, harsh punishment, you know? Mm-Hmm. I, I think if you've seen that in history, I, I have, I love history for, looked through it.

Sure. They, you know, they're not lenient people, so Yeah. Got his wife and kids in the car and we drove. After a little while I said, look, I'm going to bmo, and he said, what are you doing there? Obviously he knows it's Desert land, everything like this. I said, look, there's a training camp there. My husband's there.

I just need to find him. I didn't spend none of the money I had with me, so I said, look, I'll give you, I don't know, it was like $50 or like a hundred dollars. It's a lot of money to them. So I said, look, I'll give you double whatever you would normally charge. Just take me there. We drove through checkpoints.

No one stopped, but I think there was only one checkpoint. We went down all these country lanes. After like maybe an hour and a half of driving, he said, look, I've been driving without a purpose for like ages now. Soon we are gonna come to the biggest checkpoint because we are near the border. I won't be able to go through this checkpoint.

You can't just pass through here. You need to tell me where I'm going.

[00:13:24] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:13:25] Tareena Shakil: I said, okay. Just drive for a little bit. Had no idea what to do now. So I, I'm praying. I'm like, please God, please God, don't let it end here again. Another one of them things where it's like, Tarina, are you lying or you're telling the truth?

Hand on heart, not lying. His wife said in Arabic randomly to him, oh yeah, there's Turkey. Mm-Hmm. I heard her like, it was like, you know, distant. Mm-Hmm. Like, have I really heard that? So I said to her, what did you just say? She said, oh, yeah, yeah, that's Turkey right there where them trees are. It's not Syria anymore.

So I said, stop, stop the car. He stopped his car. I like grabbed whatever I had threw like the money on the backseat and he sped off to the point where you could see like the debris, you know, like more dirt, spattering dirt. Yeah. Yeah. He's gunning it outta it. Yeah. He knew. He knew like what's going on. So

[00:14:10] Jordan Harbinger: he didn't wanna get caught.

Heavy drugs loss. No. And you know what?

[00:14:12] Tareena Shakil: I really shouldn't have put him in that situation, but like how, what else could I have done? Mm-Hmm. I don't know what else I should have done, but he would've been in. Major trouble. Major

[00:14:22] Jordan Harbinger: trouble. Yeah. Major trouble.

[00:14:23] Tareena Shakil: He would, and look, he risked it all for like, what?

No more than a hundred American dollars or what? Whatever. Oh, he probably

[00:14:29] Jordan Harbinger: also realized that you were escaping. No, he knew,

[00:14:32] Tareena Shakil: but like, why he, he didn't want to help me for the purpose of look. This stranger, do I help her or I'm gonna die? No, it, the money would've had an influence as well. Of course it would have you, you know, but he,

[00:14:41] Jordan Harbinger: you, he had a kid with you too.

Oh, he

[00:14:42] Tareena Shakil: knew. I was for sure he knew that, look, this girl's not going to this training camp or whatever. Why did he go and get his wife and kids? He knew something was going on. Look, he helped me. It is what it is. Thank him forever. Got out, stood there to the left of me a few hundred yards. Mm-Hmm. As it were.

There's like three ISIS fighters there. All with their back to me arguing with each other and I'm like, this can't be where it ends. I just ran. I just ran to the place where the trees were and as I got to the border, it was like kind of barbed wire with mud on top of kind of thing. It wasn't like the deserted land when I came in.

See, it was a different part. So again, another miracle is at that precise moment. A Jeep full of Turkish soldiers drove past and I was like, oh, help. They seen me. So they got out the car. They originally thought that I was Syrian because they were like, go, go back. Mm-hmm, we don't want you here. You can't come here.

I said, no, I am British. And I showed them my passport and he could see obviously United Kingdom or whatever, and he didn't ask no questions. He just put his arms out. I passed him, my son. Then the other one grabbed me over.

[00:15:52] Jordan Harbinger: Oh man, you must have breathed this sigh of relief.

[00:15:54] Tareena Shakil: Well, well, well, well, when we were there, the first thing I did was I turned around and looked at the fighters.

They hadn't even boarded. They were still arguing. And I said to the Turkish soldier, I said. If he shoots from there, can he hit me? Because as I'm running, I'm thinking with every footstep I'm, maybe I'm out of his range of Mm-Hmm. Shot or with every step, I'm further away from him. That's my rationale. Oh, wow.

So I said to him, look, if he shoots me, will from there, will he hit me? He said. They're not gonna shoot. Are you crazy? Like, they're not that brave. If he shoots, we'll shoot him back. Right?

[00:16:23] Jordan Harbinger: And

[00:16:24] Tareena Shakil: he said to me, look, you're safe. Now. You're safe. He just kept saying to me, you're safe. Breathe. Breathe. I remember it so clearly.

I was panting like a dog. I was like, he said, no, calm down. You're safe. No one can hurt you now. And I was just started crying uncontrollably. I couldn't believe I had made it. I, everything was going through my head. I'm gonna get see my family. Oh my God, I'm safe. I made it. Happy is not the word, and I don't have the word.

I don't have the word. I was in another world of happiness.

[00:16:53] Jordan Harbinger: They bring you to what, like a detention center? Yes. Is it like a, is it like a prison? What is a place like? So

[00:16:59] Tareena Shakil: it's a detention center that's kind of like not big enough to be a prison, but like a police station.

[00:17:02] Jordan Harbinger: Okay.

[00:17:03] Tareena Shakil: If you think of it like that, me and other people were detained.

I was the only person there that was caught. Coming back from Syria. Everyone else was caught going to Syria.

[00:17:14] Jordan Harbinger: Ah,

[00:17:14] Tareena Shakil: yeah. So they got caught trying to escape to Syria.

[00:17:16] Jordan Harbinger: Did you tell them, Hey, got, I'm so glad you asked me that

[00:17:19] Tareena Shakil: question because I did. There were, I cannot remember what country they were from.

They were India, but spoke brilliant English like myself. Yeah, sure. I sw, I'm like, look, you've been saved. Because they were like, woe is me. I said, you've been saved. You should thank God. They were like, you're wrong. I said, how can you argue with me? Haven't been there. I was there and there was a woman from Uzbekistan as well.

I had the same conversation with, she was like, sister, you're crazy. We would've died to be there, and you came back. I said to her, you are crazy because you want to go there. You're not listening to me. I'm telling you. Thank God that you got caught here to thank God. Yeah. She said, no, we can change the things there.

I said, you're not changing nothing. Please. No. What you deluded. Come on sister. Stop it.

[00:18:04] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:18:04] Tareena Shakil: But they looked at me like I was crazy,

[00:18:06] Jordan Harbinger: man. Because they were, were they also recruited by somebody online? Essentially.

[00:18:10] Tareena Shakil: Again, a lot of people had family there.

[00:18:12] Jordan Harbinger: I see. Right. Okay. Very

[00:18:14] Tareena Shakil: rare that there was people like myself, so they had the Uzbekistani woman, she had like brothers over there or something like that.

And. The Indian family, I, I can't remember, but people were,

[00:18:24] Jordan Harbinger: wow. You're in this for how long in the detention center? Six. Six weeks. Wow. That's quite a whi. It's a really long

[00:18:30] Tareena Shakil: time. Yeah. I was going out of my mind there. I bet.

[00:18:33] Jordan Harbinger: But you were safe at least?

[00:18:34] Tareena Shakil: Yeah, safe. Hopefully coming back to England. It was never like a hundred percent that I was ever gonna be allowed back here.

They obviously did their checks, whatever it is that they had to do.

[00:18:44] Jordan Harbinger: I see. So they fly you back on the plane? Yes. To the UK at this point. Are you thinking, okay, I'm going home and I'll be arrested at some point, but it was better than dying and a bombing in Syria? Or did you think like, oh, I'm gonna put all this behind me and just join my regular life?

So

[00:18:59] Tareena Shakil: whilst being in Syria, like there were police liaison officers that worked with my family very closely. Yeah. And every single time they would say, when you speak to Tarina, tell her that it's not too late. If she wants to come home, we just want her back safe. She's not in any trouble when she comes back.

We just wanna talk to her, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Okay. Now, I am not the first person to come back from Syria or the last, but I was the first to be put in prison woman. Right? Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had no reason to doubt that, okay, it's a police officer. She's saying I'm gonna be okay, so I'm getting deported.

Of course I'm gonna be spoken to, but I didn't know I was in as much trouble as I was just because it was said, look, we just wanna speak to you. Yeah. You know, in any trouble. We just wanna know what you might have seen out there. We just wanna know all of these kind of things. So I thought that I could get to move on with my life.

[00:19:46] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:19:46] Tareena Shakil: I had no idea that what was gonna happen happened.

[00:19:50] Jordan Harbinger: So you get arrested? Yeah. And then what? Did you tell the police at the airport that you got kidnapped or something like that? No, I said I

[00:19:54] Tareena Shakil: was trafficked into Syria. I see. Okay. That I met these people on the beach and. It was a lie.

[00:19:59] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:19:59] Tareena Shakil: The reason I did that, I should not have done that.

The reason I did that is because, look, obviously they removed my child from me. He was placed not with family. Yeah.

[00:20:09] Jordan Harbinger: Oh really? They didn't not let your parents come down? No, they didn't.

[00:20:11] Tareena Shakil: My parents didn't let his dad, none of them. He was placed with strangers. So I was telling these lies with the hope of.

We can get him back. I've never been in trouble before with the police. I've never been anything like that. I dunno how this works. We've never been involved with social services. We call them over here. Mm-Hmm. Child protection. They're gonna let him come home. Yeah. So I lied like that, thinking if I was to say that I went over to Syria, they're gonna think she's crazy.

They'll never let me get him back for sure. So I lied for that purpose.

[00:20:36] Jordan Harbinger: Joey, have you ever been in a, in a Turkish prison? You know what's better than hard time in a Turkish prison? Define products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Dell and a MD.

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So come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course@sixminutenetworking.com. Again, it's free. I don't have anything to sell you. Now, back to Tarina Shaquille. Okay. And the trial does not go in your favor. Right. The judge had some choice words. I mean, she, they

[00:24:12] Tareena Shakil: were obviously, look, I ran away to Syria.

There's a lot of aggravating things. Mm-Hmm. But he was very. Accepting of the fact that, look, this girl has been through horrendous domestic violence. This girl has. While it doesn't excuse what she did, and I'm not saying that that does excuse, it's an explanation rather than an excuse. Does that make sense?

It does.

[00:24:28] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. The jury just thought, okay, well she did this willingly.

[00:24:32] Tareena Shakil: The whole thing was played out in the media. The trial was the last little bit.

[00:24:37] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Mm-Hmm. So it's

[00:24:38] Tareena Shakil: like, Mm-Hmm. We've got the eyes of the world on this trial. What do we do with people who've run away to Syria? Well, they

[00:24:44] Jordan Harbinger: made an example outta you for sure.

Yeah, well, yeah,

[00:24:45] Tareena Shakil: absolutely. And like I said, there was like 50 women that had been come back before me that hadn't been put in prison and all of the, and it was a lot to do with the media or whatever, but look, I did run away to Syria. Yeah, that's the fact. So

[00:24:57] Jordan Harbinger: what's with all the, not just you, but there's a lot of gun photos.

You know, it's like, here's a selfie with an AK 47, that's like an ISIS thing. What are they doing with that? Is that just like, I

[00:25:05] Tareena Shakil: think it's when you're from a country that, like we wouldn't get an AK 47 here. Like you would never like the

[00:25:10] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah,

[00:25:10] Tareena Shakil: no, you're not allowed guns in this country. So if you're seeing a gun, it's like, yeah, should we be cool and pose with a gun?

Mm-Hmm. I know that's stupid, but it's, that's the first thing people want to do. Mm-Hmm. Over there when they see an AK 47. 'cause you're not seeing one of them in France, so it's like, yeah, let just take a cool picture with it. You know, which is I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. It didn't

[00:25:26] Jordan Harbinger: look good to the, the jury did not think that that photo was as cool.

[00:25:30] Tareena Shakil: I hate them photos. They, they're not no. Them pictures. Right. Okay. I didn't send them anywhere. The reason that they're in the thing is because they were on the phone, you know? And I know, look, it's all to do with the environment that we were living in. That was what we were living in, and that was what was around us.

Look, have I ever taken a picture with an AK 47 before? Absolutely not. No. I appreciate your candor. Absolutely not. You know, it's just. That's what it was.

[00:25:51] Jordan Harbinger: I do appreciate your candor. It's definitely like, I can just imagine you being like, oh God, why did I take those photos?

[00:25:57] Tareena Shakil: Absolutely. The worst one is the one with the balaclava on.

[00:26:00] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:01] Tareena Shakil: Why?

[00:26:02] Jordan Harbinger: What? Well, you were, you know, when in, when in RACA do his, yeah. When in Rome Do his ISIS does, I mean, that that was just

[00:26:09] Tareena Shakil: No, thats the one that I, I feel. Sick. When I see that picture, I'm sure you do. Don't, don't use it in this podcast.

[00:26:15] Jordan Harbinger: I I will not. You'll

[00:26:16] Tareena Shakil: No, you can if you want. It is what it is.

Look, it's out there in the public domain. It is what it is.

[00:26:19] Jordan Harbinger: I might For the YouTube version, yeah, do it. Most, most of my audience is audio only. Only like 1% is YouTube. Okay. So only 1%. We'll see. See the bo. I hate

[00:26:26] Tareena Shakil: that. And I always think to myself, maybe one day I am gonna get them pictures removed. But you can't, they're in the public domain.

Those aren't going anywhere. Oh, I hate it. Yeah, I hate it. And every now and then, when someone wants to troll me. They're like, send that picture to me. And I'm like, yeah. You know, you've heard me more than swearing at me. Yeah, yeah. By sending that picture.

[00:26:41] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Well there's one Halloween costume you can never wear.

Disgusting. Literally. No,

[00:26:45] Tareena Shakil: we're not doing that again. Never. Yeah. You'll end up back in prison. Never.

[00:26:47] Jordan Harbinger: So you serve three years of a six year sentence. And during the time you're going through this, what sounds like a great idea, it's like a deradicalization program. Did the program help you? Like what? What was that all about?

[00:26:59] Tareena Shakil: So at first I was like, I don't need none of this. I know why I ran away. It was 'cause my ex-husband, I kind of like just went along with it. After like the first few sessions for me it was therapy.

[00:27:08] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:27:08] Tareena Shakil: Because you speak about every last thing.

[00:27:10] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:27:11] Tareena Shakil: From childhood to the domestic violence thing that's happened.

Every last thing you get to speak about it because they, you get to the root of the problem. Pick it. Yeah. They get to the root of it. I understood things in their entirety. I understood like, oh, hold on. Yeah, yeah. This happened because of that. Because there's loads of reasons why people are groomed. When you've been groomed, you don't think.

Yes, I've been groomed. You don't know about that. I know a lot about it now 'cause that's my area of interest. But at the time they come out with these phrases or send them my ideology and secluded people, well, you don't know that. That's a real thing. So it gives you a great understanding of, oh, actually this is what happened to me.

That's very useful in terms of moving forward with life because how do you know you couldn't be groomed again, right? I couldn't. How does someone know that? That couldn't happen? It makes you very aware. Whilst being in prison, I went through like domestic violence programs that teaches you all about perpetrators of domestic violence and you learn things and it's like.

Oh, okay. That's why that happens. And they're like, there's loads of different figures like the dominator, the this, the that, and you, you understand it?

[00:28:09] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It gave

[00:28:10] Tareena Shakil: me a great understanding of it.

[00:28:12] Jordan Harbinger: Did you at one point go, oh, I was actually radicalized and I just didn't realize it.

[00:28:17] Tareena Shakil: So I said, the first time I realized I was groomed was when like one of my legal teams said, look, he's responsible for over 300 people running away Syria.

So that was the first time, like this grooming thing started to become like a okay idea. But this whole thing, so. Really deep seeds of like, you are gonna go to hell if you live in England. Like that stuff was deeply planted in me. Yeah. It wasn't till I was in prison one day and I used to go to like the Islamic classes and, 'cause I never left my faith or anything like that.

We went to the Islamic classes and there was an imam there who was a great guy. Lovely guy. I got really well with him. We just talking like we'd learned the Koran and Mm-Hmm. I loved it because I'm right. I'm learning like this is what this actually means. I really loved it there. And we come to talk about hell or something.

I said to him, I already know I'm going to hell. And he, we don't, God's gonna send, we don't them things. I said, no, I, I am going to hell. And he said, how do you know that? How can you be so sure? And I said, anyone who migrates for the sake of Islam, but then goes back, God is at war with that person.

[00:29:23] Jordan Harbinger: Mm.

[00:29:23] Tareena Shakil: So I know I'm going to hell.

He literally, he just put his head on the floor. He had tears in his eyes. He was like, do you genuinely believe that? I said, yeah, that's what's gonna happen. He said, no, Tarina, that's not what happens. And after that, he kept me really under his wing and was like, right Tarina, we're gonna,

[00:29:39] Jordan Harbinger: Hmm.

[00:29:39] Tareena Shakil: Just tell me what else it is that you believe.

I'll go through the aath of Quran, like the verses of the Koran. We'll speak about it. I'll speak about this. Had he really looked after me, bless him. Mm-Hmm. Because that it upset him. He had tears in his eyes. Well, yeah. So that was an amazing thing. I learned a lot through him in prison as well. Yeah, there's some things that are sewn really deep that like it took, that's interesting.

It took a long time to unpick, as it were.

[00:30:01] Jordan Harbinger: I can imagine. A, there was a lot to un unpack, as we say. Yeah. Some people right now probably think, and I don't agree with this, just for the record, right. They probably think, oh, she's still a terrorist sympathizer at some level. What do you say to those people?

Because it's gotta be, well, first of all, do you understand their perspective? Like, yeah, I ran off and joined isis. Of course, I totally

[00:30:19] Tareena Shakil: understand why people would think that. It's like, come on, you made that decision. You still believe that? Mm-Hmm. You came back. You know, I, I get it. Yeah. I a hundred percent.

I totally get it. And I understand that when you hear the story and someone says, well, I ran away because I was a victim of domestic violence. I understand that. People would be like, well, yeah, you don't run away Syria. I get that.

[00:30:36] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Someone that's, I get it. Someone's going, Hey, I was a victim of domestic violence and you know what I did?

I spent too much time on social media. I understand that I didn't join isis. I

[00:30:43] Tareena Shakil: agree with that. I understand that. But look, we all break differently. And that was how I broke Mm-Hmm. That's the only explanation I have for that. But with regards to them saying, look, she's a terrorist, sympathize, blah, blah, whatever.

Like I put myself on the line every single time to raise awareness about this. Mm-Hmm. I get nothing from that.

[00:30:59] Jordan Harbinger: Well, you get something from it. It's just nothing good.

[00:31:01] Tareena Shakil: What? What? Well, yeah, but no. Like, I, I don't get paid like a lot of money for that. No, no. I don't get paid money. I don't get, I do it because I want.

To help to raise awareness. Mm-Hmm. Nobody has, like you, I don't work for the government. None that I do this all of myself. Yeah. I put myself on the line. I get some vile, nasty messages from people. As you can understand. Who cares? That's what meant, who cares? Whatever. Like it's what it is. You

[00:31:20] Jordan Harbinger: get negative comments on YouTube,

[00:31:23] Tareena Shakil: negative comments on YouTube, but.

I do that, put myself out there, which is not easy to do. Some of the messages I get like have made my heart stop at times. I'm sure. So why would a person want to do that? Like when I get nothing from it, other than the fact that they want to help. Mm-Hmm. I don't enjoy receiving their nasty messages. I don't enjoy a random person saying, Hey, you should hang yourself.

I do this. I put that to the side because I want to help people. Why? Because, look, I have been. To hell and back. Yeah. And I had the strength to pull myself back up because I have a great family. I have a great faith. I was able to, there are girls that have killed themselves that couldn't make it through this.

Yeah.

[00:32:00] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:32:01] Tareena Shakil: If I can stop just one person, it will never be worth it. But me speaking out is worth it because other people are not as strong as I am. I get messages from people who are like tarina. I am the mother of a 12, 13-year-old. Thank you so much for speaking out because. Look a, I didn't know about grooming like that.

Yeah. Now I'm gonna start paying more attention because obviously, look, we are living in a climate where the world is in a crazy place right now, should we say. Right? And things are, they're very divided, should we say. And they're like, look, I need to keep an eye on what's going on on my 13 year old's iPad.

Thank you for speaking out. Yeah. So that's why I do it. People are always gonna say, look, she's still this blah, blah. I escaped of my own free will. Nobody brought me back kicking and screaming. So why would she do that when she knows that? They would kill her. At one point I was faced with the decision of I either get caught by Bashar Asad or I get caught by isis.

If I get caught by Bashar Asad, I'm not even gonna say here what he would've done to me. Oh yeah, yeah. Let's not go down that route. 'cause I don't want to think of that.

[00:33:00] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:33:00] Tareena Shakil: I get caught by isis. Okay. What? They'll probably kill me in a less torturous look, I'm making this. Swimming this up in my head. You don't do that.

If you still support, you'd think, right, well I'm gonna die here with them and go straight to heaven. Right? You would, of course. But yeah, people are always gonna say that and think that there's nothing I can do about that. It's, that's

[00:33:17] Jordan Harbinger: true.

[00:33:18] Tareena Shakil: You know?

[00:33:18] Jordan Harbinger: Are you worried that ISIS might be encouraging people to leave the UK training them and have them come back to the UK as like diehard terrorists?

'cause some people are afraid of that. I don't know how active ISIS is these days, and I know they're still around. I

[00:33:31] Tareena Shakil: mean, look, it'd be really hard for people to get back into like the UK or whatever. Presumably then people have been outta the UK for a long time, so like you'd come, you have to answer questions, things like that.

That's true. I seen on the news yesterday that like ISIS is responsible for an attack in Afghanistan on some Spanish tourists. Mm-hmm. It's still a problem. That's really there, I think with regards to the threat that Western countries. At it would be more someone being inspired by online Yeah. Grooming.

Sure. Rather than I sending people back. I think it's a lot more difficult to send people back who definitely a lot more difficult send people back who've been trained than inspiring someone via their iPad.

[00:34:10] Jordan Harbinger: That's true. You know? That's true. So

[00:34:11] Tareena Shakil: that's the biggest threat, which is why, again, I do the whole raising awareness around online safety because it's online.

Most of the recruiting radicalization, whatever. It's mostly online.

[00:34:21] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. That does make sense. Has it been hard for you to find jobs? Because I would imagine having gone to join ISIS is not a good thing to have show up in a background check from an employer. No, it's really

[00:34:33] Tareena Shakil: not. Look what I was working at a place.

I did my ITV documentary. They said, look, a few other people feel uncomfortable with you working here. That's fine. I'll leave. I get it

[00:34:42] Jordan Harbinger: working. I

[00:34:42] Tareena Shakil: was working at, I won't go into it like what I was doing. I see. I was working at a place. And, um, they were like, look, a few people have seen your documentary, whatever.

They, they'd have the comfortable with you working here. I see, okay. So I said, okay, that's fine. I can leave. But then I've worked for people who are like, so when I did the ITV documentary, I had two jobs. I had a morning one, an evening once. So I was really like hard working at that time. And the evening job, I said to the guy.

Just before the documentary come out, I said, look, there's gonna be a documentary with me on it. I just need to tell you it's about this. But that's the first time I told him about the whole Isis, Syria thing. I said, I'll leave right now if you want me to. He said, you're not going anywhere. Don't be stupid.

I said, look, I don't wanna work here anymore. I feel like shy. He said, no, take a week off. Let the documentary come on. Because I give him pre-warning. Yeah, but just take a week off. That's it. Yeah. After the documentary had been on. The day before I was supposed to go back to work, I rang him and I said, look, I'm not coming back.

And he was like, are you mad? Get yourself back here right now. Like it's not gonna happen. I had that understanding with him. He knows, look, that's not you, Tarina, you're a good girl. Interesting. You know, I'll give you that chance. So yeah, obviously that must have

[00:35:41] Jordan Harbinger: felt good though. Did. Believed did. He

[00:35:43] Tareena Shakil: really supported me.

Bless him. Really, really supported me. So, um.

[00:35:47] Jordan Harbinger: There must have been so much fallout from that documentary coming to, because your family, I mean, surely the phone was ringing off the hook. Your daughter joined isis.

[00:35:55] Tareena Shakil: Oh no, it's, it was known because of the whole media thing. Ah, right. You see, so like everyone knew still the it girl of

[00:36:01] Jordan Harbinger: isis.

How could I forget? Yeah, yeah. Everyone knew. So that was already, but then it became like national news.

[00:36:06] Tareena Shakil: Yes. And news

[00:36:07] Jordan Harbinger: once again, I think it.

[00:36:08] Tareena Shakil: Like I just got like messages from strangers. That's where that started. I see. And before that, I hadn't had messages from strangers.

[00:36:13] Jordan Harbinger: We answered my message. I was surprised.

I was like, she's probably not checking your dms. How do you rebuild your life after something like this? I mean, one step at a time is the only strategy. So.

[00:36:23] Tareena Shakil: I have always found that being realistic and just being real works. Mm. Look, you have to be honest about it. There's no point being defensive and like, well, no, it didn't happen because of that, and it's not really my fault.

Look, you don't get anywhere like that. Be real about it. Yes. I effed it up majorly. Mm-Hmm. I did. I'm sorry about that. I can't change that. I can't look. If Elon Musk was to create a. Time machine. I would be first in queue if I had the money to use it, right? Mm-Hmm. I would be the first. But there isn't, and that's wishful thinking.

So what do we do? Yeah. What we do is we work with what we've got and make the best of the situation. I effed up more than most people do. Yeah. Messed up. I. Is that going to destroy me? No. I've been through major depression. I suffer from P-T-S-D-I. I suffer from anxiety. Now do I let that win me or do I win it?

[00:37:10] Jordan Harbinger: Mm,

[00:37:10] Tareena Shakil: no. I win it.

[00:37:12] Jordan Harbinger: There's, I'm sure you get asked about this all the time. Yes. The case of Shaima Beg, I'm probably getting her name too wrong. Yes. She's another British woman who traveled to join isis. Yeah. I wanna say, well, there's a lot of public debate about whether she should be allowed to return to the uk and I think.

She had dual citizenship UK Bangladesh or something like

[00:37:31] Tareena Shakil: that. Yeah. She's Gali isn't she? Like that's her ethnicity, but I don't think she'd never been to Bangladesh.

[00:37:34] Jordan Harbinger: I see. Well somehow her UK citizenship I think was revoked. Yeah, it was revoked. She's like basically in ass Syrian refugee camp. Yeah. With children that she had with an ISIS fighter.

I'm curious what your take is. You know, you were allowed to return here. Yeah. You don't know her. Right? So I'm curious what you think. Do we rehabilitate people like that? Do we bring people like that back into society? Because it's tough. I mean it, it almost seems like I. A fair shake is she goes to prison like you did, goes through deradicalization like you did, but man, the court of public opinion is really hard on people like this,

[00:38:05] Tareena Shakil: right?

So look, I can't sit here and say, don't let her come home. That would be hypocritical of me. Yeah, because I was allowed to come home, right? I believe in redemption. I believe in second chances. I believe in rehabilitation. Provided that the person wants it. You don't know what someone's thinking. You, you can't tell what's in someone's mind.

You don't know that if they come home, the streets are gonna be safe. I'm sure they will forever be a question mark over my head. How do we know that she isn't gonna do something? So the problem with people coming home is it's what can be proven in a court of law. Mm-Hmm. So there might not be enough to prosecute her and, and if there isn't, like she wouldn't go to prison, she'd just be.

Out and about and I think that's the 'cause I have had conversations with people who work around that and I'm like, look, how come they don't let her come back? Like I'm interested in it. And I think the general thing is it would be hard to prove it in a court of law because they dunno what evidence there is on her.

Like they had my phone. So look, Tarina Shael, you are in court with being a member of ISIS or whatever a prescribed organization. Are we gonna get a guilty charge? Well, look, we've got pictures of it with an ak Yes, we are going to get it. So. They were secure in the fact that I was going to prison. Good

[00:39:16] Jordan Harbinger: thing you took all those photos.

Good. Well, do you know, it probably

[00:39:18] Tareena Shakil: did save me in, in some sense, and we have had a situation in England where there was an individual that claimed to be rehabilitated had gone down. The Deradicalization program was at a, I think it was a university campus given a deradicalization speech. To an audience that went on to commit a terrorist attack.

Yeah.

[00:39:38] Jordan Harbinger: He was just a knife attack guy. Yeah. Yeah. And stab

[00:39:40] Tareena Shakil: light loads of people since then. There's just no tolerance with regards to that. I mean, there's no tolerance anyway, but like, no, but now

[00:39:46] Jordan Harbinger: it's, yeah, it's, does rehabilitation work at all? Absolutely. And it's like.

[00:39:50] Tareena Shakil: Look, we don't know what her intentions are, so the answer to your question is, I would like to believe that everyone has a second chance provided that they want that and that she just wants to come home and get on with her life.

But how do you know that that's what she does want to do? It's tricky. It is. It's tricky. I always look at her situation and I think to myself, God, I. That could have been me. And I'm so thankful that it's not.

[00:40:10] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:40:11] Tareena Shakil: And I do get, like I've read in comment sections before where people have said, well, how come she was allowed but Shameem was not?

And you know, people say all kinds of crazy things and Yeah, well then she shouldn't have been allowed, allowed back. But look, if we go down that line of arguing, I could then sit here and say, well, why did, am I the only one outta 50 women that went to prison? Like, I see we don't go down that route. Why is it I wasn't the first woman to come back and I wasn't the last, but I was the only one to be put in prison.

So. I could argue about that, but I don't because I, I'm realistic. Okay? They never went to prison. It's fine. But I did. I'm consumed with myself. I live my life. They didn't go to prison. That's on them. That's their business, you know? So yeah, people do go down that hole. Why was she allowed back? And she's not.

And it's because her family are Christian and she's white and all. I read all these crazy things about myself. She's not even Muslim. She's really a government spy. All the, I get that all the time. I get that. That's,

[00:41:01] Jordan Harbinger: that's YouTube for you. I get

[00:41:02] Tareena Shakil: that all the time. I get messages from people saying, I don't believe you.

Like you're, you're a great actress. You're a liar. You were never in Syria. Oh my God.

[00:41:09] Jordan Harbinger: Well then why did I go to jail? Oh yeah, you serious.

[00:41:12] Tareena Shakil: Literally like so many people say that. It's not real. Okay, I wish. Thank you. Yeah.

[00:41:16] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. That's funny. I mean, but I think

[00:41:18] Tareena Shakil: with that, what it is, is that like I'm not what people expect.

They don't expect to see that. And then I'll get messages from people who like pro isis and they'll be like. No, you're not that girl. You're ashamed. Like now look at, oh yeah.

[00:41:30] Jordan Harbinger: Well, I don't know if we can care what the pro ISIS crowd thinks of us. Eh,

[00:41:33] Tareena Shakil: well, it's not about caring. It's just like from anyone.

It's a nasty message, right? Yeah. And you, you take it on a little bit. So it's, um,

[00:41:40] Jordan Harbinger: that's true. Although, you know, there's some folks you can write off and it's usually, I think pro ISIS is probably towards the top of the list. You know, what's better than being forced into an arranged marriage with a terrorist?

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[00:43:02] Jordan Harbinger: This episode is also sponsored by SimpliSafe. If you're anything like me, you're always thinking about how to keep the people and things you love safe, probably a little too much if we're being honest.

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Shaquille. Your start to radicalization, it sort of began with you looking at the cause of the Palestinians and things like that online? Yes. Are you at all worried now? There's another Gaza conflict? Yes. There might be thousands more tos out there who are like with good intentions and wanna support the cause, and then they end up making a sharp turn.

And I'm not saying the Palestinian cause is gonna do that. I'm I'm just saying. When people are vulnerable and sympathizing with causes that are just like this, it seems like it's just a goldmine for a recruiter. Yeah. What's going on in pal area? Yeah. It's

[00:45:33] Tareena Shakil: definitely a dangerous time. I think I said before, like we live in a a time where there is huge division.

Mm-Hmm. And part of like the grooming process is other then that's a tactic. You know, if you, if you learn about grooming, like I said, I learned through it via psychology. In the D Rad program, one of the tactics is us and them. So we living in division now. So it's a really, it's a dangerous time for.

Vulnerable people because we are living in that climate. Mm-Hmm. So yeah, I think that's why I probably make a lot more videos and do a lot more interviews because it's relevant for now. It's always relevant, but it's like, right, this message is needed right now. Mm-Hmm. Kind of thing. It always happens in Covid, I think in England, like the cases of referrals for prevent went up by like 30% during Covid.

'cause a lot of people were at home. So. It might not be talked about a lot 'cause it might not be in the news. Mm-Hmm. But in the background, people who work in this area know about it. It's still a big problem. So regardless of what's happening in Gaza, Palestine right now, it's still a major issue. But something like that does, of course it increases it because we're living in times of division.

I

[00:46:34] Jordan Harbinger: couldn't understand that. Yeah. I just, I, I'm so curious if we're gonna see and we'll we won't know for another few years. Did we end up with tons more youth getting radicalized because of this? It seems like it's starting to look like that now. Just right now, those people might be protesting, but in a year, do we find them in Afghanistan or Syria or something like that?

I guess time will tell. Do you worry that I. What you did at that time gives other British Muslims a bad name. I saw a lot of comments to that effect. And what

[00:47:03] Tareena Shakil: did you see? Oh, just people

[00:47:04] Jordan Harbinger: saying, as a British Muslim, oh, we don't claim her. Yeah, we don't claim her. We don't claim me. I, you're giving us all a bad name.

No, I'm not giving you,

[00:47:10] Tareena Shakil: yeah. What I did. So here's the thing. If you go onto my TikTok page, you'll see that I make a lot of videos about Islam, stories from Islam, praying, blah, blah, blah. Right? Why do I do that? Because I. Feel major guilt that I have contributed towards this religion being viewed in a negative way.

[00:47:29] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, sure.

[00:47:30] Tareena Shakil: I contributed to that. Like, look, Muslims have lived with being called terrorists forever. They are not, it's not a religion of terrorism. But then it's like, well then you have groups like ISIS and the Taliban. How can you not be? And it's like, look guys, we really aren't that. Come on, like give us a break.

Yes, there are extremists in every group and yes, maybe in Islam they're probably a little bit more, but look, that's not what we are guys. Like we've been fighting this for a long time, that we're not terrorists or whatever. That's rich coming from me like with my convictional, you know? I get that. That's true.

So that's why I, I make the tiktoks 'cause I'm like, look, this is not, Islam is not that. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. It is a beautiful religion. It's amazing. And I feel horrendous that I have contributed to the negative view of Islam. And that my name is associated with something that is. Horrendous. Mm.

You know, probably one of, one of the most violent groups that the world would ever see. I feel major guilt for that spiritually and physically. So, yeah. Yeah, I feel guilty about that. Mm-Hmm,

[00:48:26] Jordan Harbinger: a

[00:48:26] Tareena Shakil: hundred percent.

[00:48:27] Jordan Harbinger: You ever wish you'd just gone to the beach in Turkey and turned around and came home?

[00:48:31] Tareena Shakil: Every single day of my life.

You know, I'll share a little funny story here quickly, so my mom's sister, bless her. They've never really pushed me that much. Like I said, they are not Muslims. Muslims understand it a bit more just because of the whole concept of Hira and not living under Sharia. They get it a little bit more whilst they don't love isis.

We're familiar with them concepts. Yeah. But to explain to someone who's not a Muslim, it's like, oh my God, you're not getting it at all. Yeah. Muslims get it a little bit. So I was like, look, I, you're not gonna understand why I did it or, but I was going through domestic violence that and the other, and she literally turned around and said.

Well, you could have just gone and stayed at nan's. Yeah, at like grandma's. I was like, oh no. Well, I could have, but I could have. That's, I could have, but you know, I didn't, I wish I did have gone and stayed at Granny's. You know there's a spare room there. Yeah, there is, but I didn't, yeah. Unfortunately this was what happened and I think, look.

If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

[00:49:23] Jordan Harbinger: Hmm.

[00:49:23] Tareena Shakil: Like I think I'm, nobody

[00:49:24] Jordan Harbinger: listening believes that, by the way. That's the one thing is they think you must be the most naive person on planet Earth. This would never happen to me. I think most people think this would never happen to me.

[00:49:34] Tareena Shakil: No abs. Well, they probably would think that, but look, unless you've been in somebody's shoes, don't, I'm not

[00:49:39] Jordan Harbinger: saying that it can't happen to anyone.

I'm saying nobody believes it until they're running. Well,

[00:49:44] Tareena Shakil: they're probably go over if running over the

[00:49:45] Jordan Harbinger: farmland into Syria, you know, a controlled Syria. Of course.

[00:49:48] Tareena Shakil: Look, if it can happen to someone like myself that was raced like. So liberally and like even if you could do the most intense research into my background, there is nothing extremist before at all.

And since nothing at all. So where does the problem lie? One doesn't just wake up one day and say. I'm gonna go and live in a war on country and I'm gonna go and live with isis. It doesn't happen. Mm-Hmm. There is the process, and the process is the grooming process. Yeah. Now people can say, that wouldn't ha have happened to me.

The proof is in the pudding. There was nothing before and there's been nothing since. And there would never be anything ever again. So the timeframe is this. So what was going wrong in that timeframe? Oh, okay. So she was married, right? Oh, she was going through domestic violence. Oh, this was happening. Like it can be proven, if that makes sense.

Sure. Just from looking at my life. So yeah, people are entitled to their opinion. If you've never been through domestic violence, you would probably say, look, the first time my husband slapped me, I'd walk away. I. You can't say that unless you've through it a a lot people do say that. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, you do.

I had close family members go through domestic violence when I was a kid, and I used to say, if my husband ever slapped me, I will leave straight away. I didn't. So, you know, it's, it's one of them. It's one of them. Until you're in some, what do they say? Unless you're in somebody's shoes, don't. What, what? You can't walk it.

What? What is it? What's the thing? I don't know.

[00:50:59] Jordan Harbinger: I was waiting for you to say it. Unless, because I don't know, unless

[00:51:00] Tareena Shakil: don't judge. No, don't judge the book by the well. Like you couldn't walk a mile in my shoes or whatever it is. I, I don't know, but yeah. Oh, that's

[00:51:06] Jordan Harbinger: a great ending right there. Just us stumbling over this, this cliche that we should both know.

Ly

[00:51:11] Tareena Shakil: I'm gonna ask you a question. I don't mind. So there are people like myself that have come back to America. I watched a documentary on one person. We don't need to name them or whatever.

[00:51:18] Jordan Harbinger: Okay.

[00:51:18] Tareena Shakil: But in America, what is the general like opinion of that? Is it like, no, she should be back over there. We hate her.

She needs to, that's

[00:51:25] Jordan Harbinger: a good question. I don't know who you're referring to, but, but there must be people

[00:51:29] Tareena Shakil: though that have come back, right? That, you know,

[00:51:30] Jordan Harbinger: I'm sure that there are, I'm sure that you don't know. Oh, but I, I'm gonna guess that most people say. Well, if you left us to go there, then you should stay over there.

Yes.

[00:51:40] Tareena Shakil: Yeah, I get that. That However,

[00:51:41] Jordan Harbinger: if you know who the person is and if they were fricking 15 years old, like Shaima big was when she went there. No, I didn't

[00:51:47] Tareena Shakil: think she was, but yeah, I

[00:51:47] Jordan Harbinger: think, yeah, she was young.

[00:51:49] Tareena Shakil: No, I mean the person I'm talking about, the American person was, yeah, I mean,

[00:51:52] Jordan Harbinger: it depends. If you go over there when you're 30, I think it's most reasonable people would view it differently than if you go over there when you're 19 or 18 years old.

[00:51:59] Tareena Shakil: Can I just touch on that?

[00:52:00] Jordan Harbinger: Sure.

[00:52:00] Tareena Shakil: So I get a lot of messages like that, that say you weren't groomed, you were 25 years old. Shaima was a kid. Right, right. People get groomed. In their nineties and eighties, there are old people that get groomed to signing people into their wills. Yeah. To scam. To scam. There are people that scam.

Yeah. Literally, like they've fallen in love with their carer. I watched a documentary last week. Grooming has no age limit on it, nor is it selective via intelligence. I've had that said to me before, you're incredibly intelligent tarina. It couldn't happen to you. It's got, it's not a matter of intelligence.

Well,

[00:52:28] Jordan Harbinger: I will say, yeah, I definitely expected to encounter one of the. Let's just say not the brightest bulb in the box. Really. I was like, how does this happen? This person is gonna come in here and I'm gonna have to wipe the drool off the floor after the conversation. But you are markedly more switched on than I would've expected from somebody.

Yes. Which to my which, and join isis. Well. Now I'm like, well, what's the problem here? Yeah.

[00:52:51] Tareena Shakil: What, what? What's the real reason to read that? Yeah. But yeah, no, I think that that as well, it can happen to anybody. Mm-Hmm. It's not selective of age. It's not selective by intelligence. Look, it's vulnerability. We go through stuff, right.

And when we go through stuff, we do things that are crazy. It's about being vulnerable. Yeah. It's about being vulnerable. If that is the main thing, people get groomed for whatever reason, people get groomed. I mean, in England, I think a while back there was a big problem with like youngsters being groomed to sell drugs.

Mm-Hmm. And it's. Well, do they not know that that's illegal? Well, yeah, of course they know that selling drugs is illegal, but like, do you understand what grooming is? Mm-Hmm. Grooming is when you might have that fear like, oh, I can't just walk down the street with drugs. I'll get arrested, but the groom is there to counteract that.

Now you won't get arrested. You'd be fine. We've got you covered and if you get arrested, don't worry. Well come and get you. That's grooming. Mm-Hmm. There are people that get groomed that are, God knows what age, get groomed into transporting drugs. Mm-Hmm. It's not an age thing, it's a, the groomer.

[00:53:44] Jordan Harbinger: It's about being vulnerable and isolated enough.

Go to solve for it. Go. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for your candor. Thank you for having me. Really good conversation. Thank

[00:53:50] Tareena Shakil: you. There we go.

[00:53:54] Jordan Harbinger: Here's a glimpse of my interview with the son of a Hamas co-founder before a change of heart had him working undercover for Israeli intelligence against his former friends and family to thwart terrorist plots and save lives.

Check it out.

[00:54:07] Clip: Hamas is an Islamic movement. My father is one of the founding members of Hamas. Hamas for us was everything to the point where it became an army, it's a monster. I agreed to work with Israel with a hidden agenda to be a double agent. The level of pressure that I had to go through, my heart stopped for approximately 30 seconds.

Most human beings cannot make it back. I was tortured mentally and physically. Everybody in the city knew that I'm a dead man.

[00:54:44] Jordan Harbinger: For more, including what it was like growing up in one of the first families of which many consider a terrorist group and why Mosab considers it the greatest school of his life.

Check out episode 4 0 7 on the Jordan Harbinger show. Like I said, strangely relatable in certain ways. Like what I have run off and joined ICE is obviously not. Is she unbelievably naive? Yes. Is she a bad person? I don't think so. You know, I really don't. I think it's sort of weird for me to say this, but this really is like youthful folly in a sheltered upbringing and some abuse mixed together in this toxic pot and magnified a hundred times with absolutely disastrous consequences.

I really expected to find her less sympathetic than I did. Was I in vacation mode? 'cause I was in London doing this in person. Was the jet lag getting to me? You be the judge. You let me know. Am I crazy? Or was she just not as bad as you would expect from somebody who ran off and joined isis? Although, one thing that stuck in my crawl, y'all, the marriage thing, she said she didn't marry this guy that just does not check out.

Right? She almost certainly did get married there. She was allowed to leave the house. She was allowed to go live elsewhere. I. I think she won't say so because maybe it complicates her case or maybe there's another element of shame in it. We'll never know. I didn't really wanna pry into that, you know, if somebody doesn't want to disclose that, but they're willing to admit they ran off and joined isis.

I mean, okay. There's something else going on here that doesn't necessarily need to be public if she doesn't want that. I think, and the rumor is that she married American ISIS fighter Russell Denison, who is now dead. He was killed by coalition bombing. Oh, well, sorry. No sympathy for terrorists. I mean, yes, something, something Human life is valuable, but you know, terrorists are terrorists.

I hope you all enjoyed this. I thought it was a lot of fun, very interesting insight. All things Tarina will be on the show notes@jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show. All at Jordan harbinger.com/deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show.

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This show is created in association with Podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Rahi. Couldn't do this without 'em. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends. When you find something useful or interesting, actually, I don't care if they're friends of yours, you could share it with people you don't even like.

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