It’s not only young people with nothing to lose, who abandon home to join the Islamic State: an Australian woman has abandoned her children to travel to Syria and live under ISIS. She has become one of more than 100 Australians to do so.
Jasmina Milovanov, 26, is believed by friends to have been
brainwashed by a female-jihadi website.
A Muslim convert from Western Sydney, Milovanov left two children
behind with a babysitter – five and seven years old – and never
came back. She had reportedly told her she left to pick up a new
car. This was last month, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Sydney mum #JasminaMilovanov
believed to have joined IS in Syria #IslamicStatehttp://t.co/WNVgJzi2kLpic.twitter.com/N5ywe8Cz1S
— Australia Trends (@australizer) May
25, 2015
The news came in the form of a text message to her
Turkish-Australian former husband on May 3, while he was in
Turkey.
Milovanov texted to say she was now in Syria – or ‘Sham’, as the
Arabic slang goes – and said the children were in safe hands, but
that he needed to return to Australia.
READ MORE: Australia to revoke citizenship of home grown
jihadists
The police were told the whole story several days later, after
the children were taken by a relative of the ex-husband’s. The
police, however, did not confirm The Telegraph’s report about
Milovanov’s disappearance.
“The only thing I can think about is my children. I can’t
believe she left these two beautiful children. My son was saying
in the days afterwards that he hoped ‘my mum is OK’,” the
unnamed man told the Australian paper.
“Before she (went) I talked to her (about her extreme
Facebook posts). I said this is extreme, stupid. I was warning
her about who she hangs out with.”
He described his former wife as an impressionable woman and a
dreamer prone to being impulsive. He says he does not want his
ex-wife to “finish her life” this way. Although he
believes everything to be her choice, he also believes “she
must have met someone who influenced her.”
Milovanov, whose name had now become Assma Abdullah, later posted
on Facebook about being “in the blessed land of sham.”
She also wrote “please forgive me for everything” below.
However, after being confronted about the decision by friends,
she deleted the post.
Single mother of two, Jasmina Milovanov, could face a decade
behind bars under foreign fighter legislation. #9Newspic.twitter.com/ttO0l387yf
— Nine News Sydney (@9NewsSyd) May
26, 2015
Milovanov was discovered later to be Facebook friends with a
former Melbourne woman who is a prominent jihadi bride recruiter
– Zehra Duman. Milovanov, whose ‘new’ name is Assma Abdullah,
supported Duman online, as the recently-widowed terrorist
associate told people of her new life in Syria, according to The
Telegraph.
#Melbourne
Zehra Duman, 21, has slipped out of the country to marry a
former “party boy” turned #ISIS
extremist. pic.twitter.com/CrzqXgEhIu
— ElectronicResistance (@ResistanceER) December
29, 2014
Like Milovanov, Duman is young, only 21 years of age. She also
left her home, much to her family’s shock. Following her
husband’s death she started her current life as a jihadi bride
recruiter.
A former friend of Milovanov’s later told the Australian
newspaper her impressionability had led her to believe the
Islamic State was a just organization and that life in Syria saw
everyone treated fairly and living a peaceful existence. She had
reportedly fantasized about marrying a jihadi “lion.”
UK, Aussie jihadists call to join #ISIS militants
in Iraq, Syria http://t.co/8cWarIpgoc pic.twitter.com/cJuECGrr6L
— RT (@RT_com) June 20,
2014
“She went on and on about marriage and finding a man but when
men showed interest in her she would turn them down and say she’s
waiting for her husband in Jannah (paradise),” her friend
remembers. “She would think everything IS have done has been
justified.”
Authorities are speculating on Milovanov’s reasons. She had had a
tough childhood and converted to Islam in her late teens, after
meeting her then-husband in New South Wales. The pair eventually
married in 2006, but divorced several years later, after
Milovanov didn’t think he was devout enough, according to The
Telegraph.
70 German women, including 9 schoolgirls, left country to join
#ISIS –
report http://t.co/JuAHrwY9PC pic.twitter.com/n1uIylt7HE
— RT (@RT_com) March
30, 2015
Milovanovhad allegedly expressed a wish for her husband to grow a
beard and for them to move to Sydney’s Muslim community.
She did not have full-time employment, her last job being in a
call center. She was also on government benefits as a single
mother.
Mother of Jasmina #Milovanov
said she was shocked to find out her daughter had fled to Syria
leaving her 2children. pic.twitter.com/ryuC49l2Qo
— Paul Walker (@pdwnews) May 26,
2015
“I am very upset. I don’t even know what she’s done, we are
still in shock all of us,” Milovanov’s mother told Channel
10. She did not think there were any warning signs.
“She never mentioned anything about it, she never talked
about it. She was living, taking her kids to school I even saw
her the week before and she was alright,” the mother said.